


Pokemon Blue Core; Waking Up

by Star74



Category: Original Work, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series)
Genre: Gen, Original Characters - Freeform, Original Plot, Other, Pokemon - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-31
Updated: 2013-03-31
Packaged: 2017-12-07 03:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/743717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star74/pseuds/Star74
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emily Shigahiro awakes to discover she has no idea who or what anything is, and that she's lost memory of her 14 years of life, remembering only a vivid sunset in Vermilion City. She leaves her older brother and spite-filled mother in her home town of New Bark and begins her journey to get to Vermilion, meeting a girl named Michelle Mizaki. Michelle is headed to her cousins home in Olivine and the two decide to travel together, running into trouble at every turn.</p><p>This story is based heavily off of the experiences the authors shared with the Pokemon Games growing up (but changed around slightly so they seem cooler than they really are) and has nothing to do with any of the original characters (like Ash/Red, Gary/Green, etc) except a select few (gym leaders, professors, etc), the main set of characters being made up of OCs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [For our childhoods](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=For+our+childhoods), [For our younger selves](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=For+our+younger+selves).



> Hi everyone! I’m the co-creator of this story…My friend is the other co-creator…  
> We are creating a Pokémon story with no Ash, Misty, Brock, May, Dawn, Gary, or anyone else!  
> The idea was my friend’s, after I had told her about a fantasy I had when I was little, and she was “inspired to make a manga” out of it. I agreed ecstatically, and then…well, I don’t think we had the same ideas. So, I decided to write the story out in book-mode, and so I guess now we’re just going with what I’m writing (?).  
> This story takes place, uhm… 6 years after (the first Kanto game) Kanto times, and so things aren’t the exact same as they were before in the games…so don’t hate it or us for that.  
> Some things to consider-Japanese text is within the story, and so first off, there isn’t anything important said in Japanese; they basically repeat what they say in English…and second, if it’s incorrect, then blame Google Translate, not me…yes I used Google…If it's wrong, sorry, please message me with a correct translation? Thank you!!

   Hello, I’m Emily Shigahiro. I’m a fourteen year old Pokémon trainer. I was exiting Vermilion city one day at twilight. I walked out and looked up at the setting sun. My eyes went wide with awe; I had seen…the most beautiful sunset ever…

 

   I stirred in my rest, finding the way back to the present time. I opened my eyes to the faded brown walls that I was supposed to call my room. I lay back in the stiff bed. Glancing up at the ceiling, I wondered why it was only a sunset that stood out to me; after every memory of my quiet life here in New Bark, why was it only that one spot in Kanto that I could remember? Why nothing else?

   My name is Emily Shigahiro…and I live in New Bark town in the Johto region. I was a Pokémon trainer once…I don’t know when.

   I pulled myself out of bed and walked to the window. I gazed out at the little children running around with their Pokémon.

   If you ask anyone in this town, they could tell you I was a Pokémon trainer a few months back…but I don’t know for sure. I know nothing about my life beyond the one place where my flashback took place.

   I pressed my hand against the window and closed it into a fist, leaving fingerprints on the glass. The sunlight suddenly flooded into the room, and I squinted my eyes to adjust them to the light.

   As I was leaving Vermilion city, and I noticed the sunset, something happened…and the next thing I knew, I woke up here at my home…but I don’t know for sure that this _is_ my home…I remember nothing.

   I slowly slid my hand down, and walked back away from the window. I turned away and pounded down the stairs into the living/dining room. As I got to the bottom, I grasped the end of the railing with my hand and swung myself off the last step. The two others who lived in the house were sitting by the stairs; my mother, sipping tea and my older brother, sitting cross-legged reading the newspaper. They were seated under a light mahogany kotatsu.

   I let go of the railing and strode past them to the front door. I reached to my side to get my dark blue jacket. I pulled it on, and started to open the door.

   “Where are you going?” I heard my mother ask blankly behind me. I turned my head to her.

   “Outside.” I replied, opening the door. The cool air flowed inside, and I pulled my jacket closer.

   My mother set down her cup soft but firmly. “Where do you plan on going?” she asked me. She sounded uninterested, but I from what I had learned about her the past few months, if I didn’t answer correctly, I was in for a world of doom. The place I was planning to go probably wasn’t the right answer though.

   I am not in a good position right now.

   My mother picked up her cup again; I stood in the same stance I was in. All was still, but the tension slowly building made the mood uneasy. I looked down and toed at the carpet with my foot. “Just…out…” I replied casually, as if it wasn’t anywhere important.

   She set her cup down once more, but said nothing. I used it as an opportunity to slide out the door outside. I closed the front door behind me and pressed my back against it (without releasing my grasp on the doorknob). I leaned back and looked up at the sky. The clouds were slowly moving past. My mood slightly went higher and I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. It felt good to have fresh clean air and to not be stuffed inside that house where rules and lack of memories suffocated me.

   I became aware of the noises of feet running a ways off. I opened my eyes to see the kids running around with their Pokémon. They were laughing and playing. My mood went down a bit, and I let go of the doorknob and turned away from them and walked off.

   It was recently discovered that there was a lot of unused wind in New Bark town, and there are windmills near every house now. Along with the windmills came a lot more energy, and more people moved here. That’s where the kids came in.

   I walked until I came upon the opening of a dense forest. There was a tiny wooden park table by an evergreen tree. I got onto the table part and lay flat, looking at the opening in the trees at the sky.

   All the kids here wanted to become Pokémon trainers. I know this because my brother (and I occasionally) apparently taught them how to battle.

   I turned to my side, clenching my hand into a fist. If only I remembered…

   I used to be a trainer too. I once gained access all the way to Kanto. But now I remember nothing. I don’t even remember my own Pokémon. The day after I woke up here in New Bark, my mother sent it away to professor Elm to release it. I watched it walk off in sadness and confusion that day; my mother didn’t even let it near me. She blamed the Pokémon for my memory loss. As I watched it walk away, I didn’t feel anything. I felt completely empty; I knew I should have felt something…but I didn’t even remember it…so how could I have felt something?

   I began to finger at the pine picks lying next to me.

   _How does it feel to not know who you are?_ I flinched as the thought ran through my mind. The way people had been acting lately…as if I caused so much pain by not being who I was before this all happened. I turned again, my legs upright. I don’t know who I was before I lost my memory…The way people describe myself to me doesn’t sound like me at all…I know who _I_ am…I just don’t know who I _was_.

   I became aware of footsteps behind me. I tilted my head back. My older brother was standing in front of the base of the evergreen tree holding a large book. “Hello.” He said quietly, sitting down against the base.

   I looked back up at the sky. “Hey.” I said.

   I may have no memory of my past, but I can tell that our relationship has strained; from good or bad I can’t tell. For awhile after I woke up from losing my memory, he had teased me, or at least tried to set the former me off. He stopped after I asked him why he was talking to me like…like I knew what he was talking about. I didn’t think it sounded rude or mean, but ever since he’s been lying low as well…I can tell he’s not fully comfortable with things as they are now, but he has stepped aside as to not start any “fires” between our mother…as things are tense enough between her and I already…

   I crossed my arms across my stomach. Having him here broke my relaxation, and now it just felt awkward. I leaned my head back to look at him. He was sitting reading, seemingly content. I groaned to myself. Why did everything have to be so complicated and awkward with me? It was fine for him…

   Suddenly, trampling footsteps could be heard. My brother and I looked up curiously, and noticed the kids from earlier ran through with their Pokémon. They all surrounded him and started shoving to get closer, and talking over one another, which resulted in shouting.

   “Hey, Jacob, can we train now?!” One kid asked, jumping up and down.

   “Hey I want to show you what my Totidile can do!” another kid shoved her out of the way. The jumping from her stopped, and she grabbed him by the shoulder.

   “Hey no way! My Chikorita is better than your dumb Totidile!” They stared each other down.

   “Well Cyndaquil is better than you all because he is a fire type! Fire beats everything!” another kid interjected, being shoved into the semicircle they had formed. Both whipped around to him

   “What?! No it doesn’t! My Totidile will take you down!”

   “Sentret is better than ALL of you because it’s normal type!!!!” another kid shouted at the three.

   All three turned in anger. “NU-AWW!!!”

   “Hey, hey you guys,” answered Jacob calmly, walking over and putting his book by my head. “We can train now, yes, and I can teach you about pronunciation…” he glanced at the kid with the “Totidile” and continued, “…and which types…” at this he glanced over to the four former-arguing children, “…are effective against others.”

   Jacob started to jog back to our house, the little kids chasing after. I closed my eyes and lay down again.

   I don’t know how Jacob can put up with that. It’s kind of sad, really…not just because of the incompetence of the kids but…I had no idea what the kids were even talking about.

 

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

   I watched the clock, back in my room. I kept my eyes on it, every second as it went by.

   _Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

   I sat, still as could be, watching the eyebrows of a Pokémon move back and forth…

   When I had come to after losing my memory, I had learned of a clock tower right inside Professor Elm’s laboratory…I was fascinated by it…it sounds lame, but I had nothing else to do with my life.

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

   One week after I had “regained consciousness, I heard a neighbor (apparently a “newcomer” from Goldenrod city) gossiping and whispering about me with my mom…

   I have a very good memory…now at least. I don’t know about before…maybe when you lose everything you remembered for the past 14 years, your memory to present events becomes more clear.

   I stared at the clock tower, but my memory drifted off…as it typically did. Did it use to do that?

   I had been on the stairs, sitting…for what reason was it…oh yeah. Because I had nothing else to do.

   It was awhile before my mind began to grip to the words that my mother and the neighbor were forming together. I sat still, listening:

   “…It’s really quite ridiculous…” one of them rambled (I believed to be the neighbor, because my mother wouldn’t _ever_ make such comments). “…how although she has this difficulty, refuses to try and excel at anything she had previously enjoyed. Do you know that although she had submitted her work to an Olivine City art exhibit in the past, she has not lifted a pencil since?”

   I had looked down, as the numbing emptiness crept over me. I had a feeling that I was the topic of their conversation at the time, but I don’t remember ever enjoying drawing. Or be good at it, in that manner.

   There was silence for a short period of time after the previous response. I had sat still, listening to what my mother would say in reply… “Well Janine,” I heard my mother say (after a sip of tea?!) “…despite what a lovely life she could have had before all of… _this_ happened, I’m just shocked how she couldn’t even get over the memory loss and pick up what pieces she had left and continue on with her life, and move on from…what ever happened to cause this.” I remember imaging her wave her hand around gesturing.

   My memories found their way to the present. I was doing as I was before they took off; staring at the clock, waiting for the bell’s to begin ringing the time…I stared, but my thoughts, too slow to follow my memories, began to wonder about that moment; how I had thought how unfair and distant they had been…I didn’t follow anything that they were saying with how I am…they were talking bout me like I was two different people…Maybe I am.

   It was ridiculous though; how could they expect me to know exactly what it was I was good at and what I had enjoyed when I had no memory?

   Maybe I knew before; but not now…I believe it is pointless for me to pick up the pieces and continue with my life…because…

   I pulled my knees closer and put my head on my knees, burying my face in my arms.

   …There are no pieces from the past that I can pick up.

_Dong. Dong. Dong._

   I looked up at the clock. The hands were on the fifth dash mark-five o’clock.

   I stood up and walked to the window, pressing my face against the glass. The clock tower had begun to tell what time it was. I stared at the tower; watching the Pokémon fly away as the bell continued to toll.

_Dong. Dong. Dong. Dong._

   I closed my eyes, and began to count along to the tolling.

_Dong. Dong. Dong._

   One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

_Dong. Dong. Dong. Dong._

   Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. I began to count aloud to the deep sounds that echoed around me.

_Dong. Dong. Dong._

   “Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.” The bells stopped and so did I. There was an eerie silence; as if the earth and wind had ceased motion as to not interrupt the bell’s mystical sounds…

   I smiled, and stood there, light filling my eyes…

   The silence was interrupted, much to my _dis_ pleasure, by steps bounding up the stairs that connected my room to the living room. Jacob popped his head through, looking around. I was still at the window, my hand still pressed against it, my legs still locked in place. In fact, the only thing different about my position was that my head was turned to give a dulled, blank look to him.

   “Dinner.” He said, staring oddly at me. I sighed and slipped down to my knees, head against the window.

   “Kaika ni ima sugu kite.” He said bluntly and I groaned. Nevertheless, I got up and flopped down the stairs.

   I plopped down on my knees into the tiny pillow-seat and put my elbows on the table, holding up my face. My mother, carrying a platter of…food…on her arm, walked by and sat across from me, cross-legged. She set the platter down on the kotatsu and without even glancing up at me, immediately called out “Emily, tēburu no ude o kiru.” She began to cut the food, not looking up at anyone. I stared at her, and slowly put my arms at my side.

   The meal was silent, but with less tension in the air than earlier; I had observed it was less stressing with my mother in the afternoon/evening time than the morning. There was still something…uneasy about the mood.

   I dug my fork into my curry, and took an overly exaggerated bite, acting oblivious to the tense atmosphere. I ignored my family’s silent responses, and simply continued to eat. I glanced up and their faces sent waves of aloneness down my back. My brother was staring, nervously quiet, at the table. My mother was sitting completely still; eyes closed, calmly holding and sipping her tea, with her other hand on her lap. Although she couldn’t see my face staring at her, I still felt anger and frustration wafting towards me. I looked down from the tensional energy, her mood slowly filling the room. I silently began to eat again, trying to attract as little attention to myself as possible. My brother began to eat as well, both of us trying not to set off our mother. How we did that? …By eating quickly. _Well,_ I thought, slowing the pace, _at least she hasn’t started to eat yet…that will give me time to myself afterwards and away from her is what I want…_

   I heard a clank of some metal type thing of some sort, and my head popped up to see my mother; who had set down her tea cup. _Ahhh that’s what the “metal” was…_ I quickly thought. I stopped eating and looked at her, expecting something. I heard Jacob set down his fork, although I did not turn to look at him. My mother still had her eyes closed; she was lightly twirling her finger in the air, with _her_ elbow on the table. The silence fell over all of us; my brother and I-tensed up. My mother- calmly content; it was pretty obvious who had control of the situation right now.

   She opened her eyes and stopped twirling her finger. She slid her arm off the table and sat up. Still avoiding direct eye contact with me, she began to stare around the room, appearing to be bored. “Emily, anata wa saikin kōryū sa rete iru ka?” she murmured, but loud enough for me to hear. I cleared my throat awkwardly.

   I knew what small little phrases meant in Japanese (because the same scolds and commands were repeated to me everyday) but I wasn’t fluent, unlike my mother and brother. I _was_ fluent but it was since the…yeah I don’t need to explain every time.

   I knew what she was doing; she had done this in the past before. I would (and I say this from experience) eventually ask her what she had said (in ENGLISH!!!) and she would ignore me…and I’d ask Jacob, who would, involuntarily, ignore me, simply to save his own skin. I know he _would_ answer me; I’d see it on his face, but he would just remain quiet, in respect (or _fear_ ). The methods of punishment for whatever my mother didn’t like about me involved making me feel even more distant and alone.

   So I sat, and a wall separating me from the rest of the world was roughly drawn and cut right in front of my body. I felt a lonely, looming dark feel cast itself over me…

   “Teishi- suru hanojo wa ni hongo ga hanaseru eigo kanojo oshie dekinai no shitte iru.” A stern voice said. I looked to my side, breaking my concentrational view on my mother, to look at my brother with surprise; he normally just stayed silent and out of the silent fights my mother threw at me. He was glancing downwards at his plate, looking as if someone else had talked back to her. I slowly turned to my mother to see her reaction. She was glaring Jacob down, posed to attack if one more word was spoken from him. Jacob continued to look down. “Eigo o kanojo ni tsutaeru…”

   Hands were smacked onto the table as the items on the table were thrust up into the air about ½ a centimeter. I closed my eyes in fear of the loud noise, and slowly opened them again. My mother was standing; hands on the table, positioned towards my brother. He was looking down before, but just now, he slowly raised his head to look at her…his expression of worry did not change.

   I thought I saw their mouths move; maybe speaking under their breaths; but then my mother sat back down, straightening the table. Jacob looked back down and began to eat again.

   I sat, slightly petrified. I hadn’t seen anyone act so open with emotions…it was unsettling to me. I stared into the open, looking at particularly nothing, the memory of what had just occurred replaying in my mind.

   “Emily.” I was brought back to present time, and I moved my eyes to my mother, who was seated in the way she was before Jacob had spoken to her. I stared at her, waiting for her to continue. She gave a small, very subtle change in her face and smirked. “What have you been doing lately?”

   I fidgeted to a comfortable position. It didn’t help. Neither did the fact that she had spoken to me in English; I was probably worse off with this question than the one in Japanese!

   “Uhm…” I began to stammer. My mind was completely blank, because I hadn’t been doing anything. I didn’t know what to say! So…I answered honestly. “I…I…haven’t been doing…” I stammered and then faded into silence.

   Silence of my part that is. The woman across from me; well, it was probably the opposite for her.

   She continued to sit; but she had begun to twirl her finger around again. A good sign? Or not? I couldn’t tell.

   “Ah.” She replied, seemingly more interested in the pattern her finger was twirling in.

   Sadly, I knew better.

   I sat, my face down now, a mixed emotion of shame and unneeded guilt filling me.

Silence. “Why not?” she asked, her finger stopping and resting itself on the table. Her head turned to face me, expression testing.

   I continued to look down. The emotions I was feeling were flooded out of my mind and chest while the feelings of emptiness overwhelmed me. I did what I could; looked down and stayed quiet.

   My mind blanked out…and the others continued to eat…but my mind still stayed blank, completely oblivious to everything around it. As my mother swept the dishes and leftover food up and whisked them and herself away to the kitchen, and my brother slowly walked away down the hallway to another part of the house that I had not bothered to explore, I sat. My mind swirled around, and I was completely gone for a few good minutes…at least. When my mind does this, it usually repeated the things in my life that had happened previously. But this time, it was everything; everything I had experienced in the life that I knew, all of the memories regarding me flashed in and out of mind, as quickly as they came. The memories I had pop in were so different and strange that I found no pattern, no theme…until words popped into my mind:

**_You_ ** _are **alone** , and **you** **cannot** change that._

   I sat, absorbing and focusing the words, and more memories flew around my mind, gaining speed.

   “Emily.”

   I stared off into space. The memories had begun to speak to me; I saw images of my recent memories of people speaking to me, but I couldn’t hear them after they had spoken my name…

   “Emily…”

   Why could I not hear them?

   “Emily…”

   I had heard them before…why not now?

   “Emily!”

   I snapped back to the present, and looked around frantically. I caught eye of my brother standing in the hallway leading to the other area of the house. He looked blankly at me.  
   “It’s nine o’clock…”  
   I got to my feet and silently walked to the stairs. After all that thinking, and grasping that I couldn’t do anything with myself anymore, I don’t know why…but I expected something to happen as I passed him. I looked straight forward, and walked past him…and nothing happened. I reached the stairs and paused. Were my hopes up? What did I expect as I walked past him? What did I want for him to do? What was it that he could do?

   I began to walk up the stairs; my mind and the silent stare from Jacob answered me.

   _Nothing._

 

   Her eyes widened; she felt so full and complete. Her eyes never left the scenery for a moment…For awhile, it was just the sunset. Nothing else mattered....there was nothing else to interrupt this moment…

 

   I woke up immediately, because something _had_ interrupted the lone memory from my past. I sat upright and looked around, trying to find the difference in the room that had caused me to awaken. I didn’t notice it right away, but I glanced out the window, and saw a Pokémon of some sort sitting on the sill. I stared at it, and I believe I saw it tilt its head at me curiously. It was very small (about a foot); I don’t see how it flying to my window could have wakened me up.

   I kicked my legs out through the blankets and got out of bed, staying to the wall opposite the window the Pokémon was occupying. I moved so I was against the wall and put my hands up to my face; I didn’t know what to do…

   Yes, yes I was a Pokémon trainer…but I was also apparently _skilled_ at drawing, and I can’t sketch anything to save my life now…it’s the same with dealing with Pokémon; I have no idea what to do with them. I knew, staring at the Pokémon (who had begun to peck at the window), that I couldn’t leave it there, in front of the window.

   I wasn’t permitted to come in contact with Pokémon-in any way, what so ever, (as my mother had made quite clear with me the day my Pokémon was sent away), and if she came up to see…this Pokémon by my room, then…well, I’d be in trouble. Besides, after what had happened the night before, I didn’t want another reason for her to separate herself from me.

   I began to pick at my nails and I bit my lip. I did not move my lower body though; I was locked in place. The Pokémon continued to peck at the window, glancing up at me every so often. It was content; could it sense my hesitance? Did I look weird to it, standing up against the wall, frozen in place?

   An acorn fell from the tree next to my house. It hit the sill right next to the Pokémon’s head. It shuddered, and flew off into the distance.

   I didn’t move out of my position; I was staring at the spot it was in. I wasn’t thinking anything; just stared at where it left.

   I moved my eyes over the window to see if it left any marks from its beak. I didn’t see anything…

   I let my body move out of the stiff pose I was in, and I walked over to the window to examine it more thoroughly. I leaned by it and ran my fingers across the glass. Nothing noticeable popped out to me, so I turned to get dressed. _I must have fallen asleep in my jacket_ I thought, noticing it on the ground besides my bed, as I pulled on a clean black shirt. I plopped onto my bed and picked up the jacket, pulling it on as I slid off the bed.

   I sat down on the floor, stretching out my body and eventually, lying down. I closed my eyes; the sun began to flood into the room.

   I lay there…but felt something happen. It felt as if I wasn’t alone anymore…

   I lifted my head and opened my eyes. Jacob was standing by the stairs…why? He…

   “Emily, Issho ni kite.” I stared at him blankly. He stood there, waiting for a response, and then a flash of understanding came across his face. “Come with me.” He changed his sentence to, and went down the stairs softly. I stood up and followed quietly. _Strange; what does he want?_ I thought to myself, walking down the stairs to see him at the door. _He rarely speaks anything despite greetings to me…and so what could it be that he wants?_

   He opened the door and I instinctively pulled my jacket closer to me. Jacob looked back as he stepped outside and I stopped, waiting to see what he would do. He looked at me solemnly, and then in a split second bolted off towards the forest.

   I gasped in surprise, and without thinking, gave chase to him. I ran outside and swerved towards the forest without stopping. I could see him, in a dark blue jacket (darker than mine) and ran faster. He would turn every once in a while, causing me to slow down.

   I don’t know how far we ran…or how long…but he stopped in a very small clearing in the forest. I slowed my run down to a jog, and stopped. Jacob was previously looking down at the base of a tree where moss was growing, but now he turned his gaze to me. I couldn’t read his expression, but it did not worry me; I was calmed. Well, a little worn out from the running, but…

   Jacob leaned down to the ground. He picked something up…but I couldn’t tell what it was. A small feeling inside me told me to worry…

   But it was too late to feel that warning because whatever Jacob had picked up was hurling towards me, aimed for the space in between my eyes on my forehead. I swerved my head instantly and it hit a tree base behind me. My heart began to pound rapidly; I was in shock. I couldn’t grasp or believe how fast I had moved; the memory replayed in my mind, over and over in a matter of seconds…

   I heard a noise and looked up in time to see another one of Jacob’s objects headed towards me. I ducked and I barely grazed my head, but Jacob didn’t pause. He kept hurtling things towards me, and I kept dodging them, only barely missing their touch. I had no time to think of why he was doing this; I needed to focus on avoiding the objects…that took a lot; I wasn’t doing a very well job, only missing by a millimeter…

   I had only barely dodged a stick when a rock hit my ear. My heart stopped for a few seconds and I fell to my knees, staring down at the ground. At last I had time to allow thoughts to run through my mind…and they did.

   _What is this?!_

_What is he doing…?_

_Why is he attacking me?_

I could hear him walk towards me and I looked up at him. He towered above me, looking down at my small inferior state.

   It was only then that I remembered I had known nothing about the man before me whom I had called Jacob for the past four or so months…The Jacob that stood before me now was serious, and threatening. The cold air caught up to me as the wind blew by and I felt my arm prick up with goose-bumps.

   His arm leaned by my neck, and the seam of my jacket was grabbed, and pulled up. I stood before him, his hand still on my jacket. I looked at him with tired looking eyes, panting to myself quietly. He released his grip, but moved no other body part. “Why don’t you remember that I know how to fence?!” He asked suddenly, kicking a branch into his hand and pointing it at me threateningly. I didn’t move; I was frozen in my spot. Any movement from me, and I feared he would begin lashing out again.

   My eyes followed him as he stomped over to a dirt patch in the ground. “What about this?! Have you really forgotten to read and write in Japanese _and_ English?!” He snapped off a twig of the branch. “I haven’t seen you read anything…” he fumed, beginning to scribble out something in the dirt with it. I said nothing; eyes pricking, I continued to watch him. It was all true, though.

   He backed away from the dirt, eyes still on it. Then, he jabbed his head at me, and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a small ball; half of it red, other half white. My eyes looked from it, to him. I knew what it was. He hit the button in the center, and a flash of purple light came out from it. I shielded my eyes as the light lit up the clearing. As I looked up after the light faded away I saw a large blue Pokémon standing before me, positioned to fight.

   I stared up at it, then at my brother. He was gazing sternly at me, waiting for…I don’t know what. _Maybe waiting for me to remember…_

   I stepped around the Pokémon, and walked to him. I stopped before him, the Pokémon now at the side instead of dividing us by being in the middle.

   “I just…don’t.” I said.

   “Why don’t you draw anymore? Why don’t you swim? Climb trees? Anything…?” he said, ignoring my previous words. I gazed at him.

   “I don’t know how.”

   He spun around to me. “Yes you do…” he said, backing away from me. “You knew so many things…you could…you did…” his voice began to fade out to a silence, but then it articulated. “You need to take what you know and move on Emily! You can’t spend your days wanting to know of your past! You need to move on, and get over this…”

   Remembering my mother’s words, my expression turned foul. “I lost my skills. I didn’t lose just my memories- I lost _everything_.” I told him squarely. He looked at me curiously. “You…can’t remember any of that? You don’t even remember how to read?” he asked, walking back. “I thought you just…but wait…”

   “I can’t remember. It’s as simple as that.” I interrupted, throat cracking. Jacob shook his head, not accepting my words.

   “No, it’s not possible…” he said, looking me over. “…it doesn’t make sense. How could you not remember how to read…or write?” I shrugged, glancing off behind me.

   “I don’t know…” I said as a raindrop hit my shoulder. I looked up; the sun had been cast away behind gray storm clouds.

   The rain started to fall lightly as I continued. “I don’t remember anything mentally…my physical body is the same, and I can talk…nothing physically damaging happened to me…but…is it so weird that I would forget the things and skills I had learned in the past?”

   Jacob looked unconvinced. “No…I’ve heard of people losing their memories…but only their memories. They never forgot any of their skills, and through their skills, they regained their memories…” he began to pace again. “…but if you don’t know your skills, or even your hobbies, then there is no way of regaining your memory…”

   He slammed his fist against a tree trunk. “If only you remembered something…” he groaned, sliding his hand down.

   I jolted my head up to look at him. “I do.” I said quietly. He turned to me, expression hopeful.

   “What?”

   “I do remember something…”

   “What do you remember?” He asked, walking closer. I looked down.

   The memories pulled me away from the forest clearing and showed themselves to me; the reoccurring of dreams, awakening after the sunset, _the place where the sunset was…_

   Shoved back to the time, I looked up at him. “I remember the place where I lost my memory…” I said to him. “It was a sunset…a bright one, a vivid one, and I stared at it…then everything went black.” I shook my head, rain flying off my long brown hair. “I’ve been having dreams of it, replaying the scene over and over…”

   “For how long?”

   I looked back at him. “I don’t know…for awhile. At first I thought it was just a dream but…” I shook my head again. “It has to be the place. I know it.”

   All was quiet. I looked at him; he was in thought, head up towards the clouds. He looked back at me. “That…just could work…” he said, thinking aloud to himself. He looked at me, eyes gleaming softly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the Pokéball that his Pokémon belonged in. He held it out towards the Pokémon, and hit the button. The bright purple light appeared again, and it flew around the Pokémon. The Pokémon disappeared, and the light soared back to the ball. The ball closed, and Jacob put it back in his pocket. He walked to me and leaned down, so we were face to face.

   “You need your memories…now I see that.” He said, gazing at me in a calming yet urgent way. “The only way I see for you to regain them is if you go to the place that you lost them…”

   “Why do you think that?” I asked him. “How are you so sure…?”

   Jacob stood up again. “I’m…not.” He replied, walking through the trees. He stopped in between two of them. “You need to get to that spot. We first heard of your unconsciousness in Fuchsia city…and retrieved you there.” He gazed back at me. “You’ll need a Pokémon to get back to Kanto…and you have none. You’ll need to go to Professor Elm’s laboratory…” he stopped. “Ah I forgot…you need a Pokémon to get there…” He ran back, past me and pointed out a small pathway. “If you go this way, these hills, you can get to Elm’s lab. All of your Trainer stuff is at home, in the closet by my room. Mother is asleep…so you need to be careful.” He chuckled to himself. “For all I know, she won’t be happy to find out that you’ll be leaving…”

   My voice found its way back to me, and I stood up straight. “So let her be that way.” I said seriously. “I need to do something.”

   Jacob’s face became serious again. “As do I.” He murmured to himself, and then walked out past me, further up the hill, deeper into the woods…

   I watched him walk away until he had disappeared completely and turned to the path he had pointed out to me. So many things…why did I feel he had changed? This was a side of him that had been there…but one that I hadn’t known about. I glanced back to the way that we had entered the clearing; back to the house that I could not see. Was this going to happen with everyone I meet?

   I began to trudge down the wet hill, out of the opening in the trees, down to the house. _Here I go…_ I thought to myself, ducking beneath branches as I continued.

   I walked for a few minutes through the thick forest. Once the hill subsided into a flat(ish) terrain and the trees grew more far apart, I began to run. The rain had stopped, but the trees were a dark wet brown color. The trees still had raindrops on them, and dropped as I ran. I was still wet from the rain, and the rain from my hair and body flew out behind me as I continued. I slowed myself to a walk once I had caught sight of the little park table by my house. I walked past it, up to the dark brown brick wall of the side of my house. I leaned against it, sidling across… _Like a ninja_ I thought to myself sourly. I kept at it, ducking under windows, dodging branches in the way, until I got to the door.

   I left my ninja motives, and got off of the wall and turned to face the front door. I slowly put my hand onto the doorknob, and turned it ever so carefully. The door slowly creaked open, and I stopped it to prevent any more sounds escaping from it. I squeezed my body into the house, and quietly shut the door from behind me. I turned to the hallway that lead to my brother’s/mother’s room. I had to find the closet. With a lot of Pokémon stuff in it. Probably shoved into boxes. Without waking my mother…and I didn’t even know where the closet was.

 _Wow_ , I thought sarcastically to myself. _Wish I freaking asked for more details…_

   Sighing to myself, I slowly crept down to the hallway, looking back and forth. The hallway was layered out simply; a door on my left, and an archway leading into a living room area on the right. I glanced into the living room, and noticed that there was one door visible to me. I looked back at the door to my left. _That must be my mother’s room…_ I thought to myself, and very carefully took three giantly-over-exaggerated steps into the living room. The floor was carpeted, and my shoes left small marks where they had passed over. Not caring, I walked my way over to the center of the room and surveyed the area. I was standing between two couches facing a TV. A computer was on my left, under a window. There were a few bookshelves lining the walls on the right side of the room. But the walls were pretty much bare…there were two doors on the wall that I was facing. The one I had noticed earlier was around the middle of the wall…too close to have it be a closet. _And that must be Jacob’s room_. I concluded, and walked over to the other door. _He did say that his room was by the closet…_ I slowly opened it, the light from the room quickly filling up the small space.

   My expression stayed the same as I looked into the closet, but I cringed inside. _Why are there so many big boxes?!_ I thought bitterly to myself. There were boxes spread out all over the floor; boxes unevenly stacked on top of one another, boxes shoved into corners, and even one box had opened up, its contents spewing all over the floor. _That eliminates **one**_ _box..._ I noted as I stepped into the tight area, leaving the door opened. _Only around 75 left to go…_ I added sarcastically.

   I noticed a box close to me, and stepped over the fallen picture frames and necklaces on the ground. I opened up the box and began to rummage through the fabric it held within, with no luck as to where my “Trainer items” could be.

   I pushed the fabrics back into the box, and dropped it onto the floor, and began to search the box that was underneath it. All that was in it were strange books with odd characters on them. I couldn’t tell if they were in Japanese or another language completely, so I just put it on top of the small stack of boxes that was beginning to form. I continued to search through the boxes, finding only stranger and odder things than the contents for the boxes before.

   After the tenth or so box, I noticed a tiny sized box shoved against the bricked wall in the corner of the wall. I leaned away from the stack of boxes I had already searched, and observed it from where I stood. It was really small to hold things a Trainer would have…well, then again, I didn’t know what I was looking for exactly.

   I stepped up, over the boxes I had moved around the floor around me, and crouched down to lean in close to the small box. I blew the dust off, and opened it up. My brow furrowed in skepticism, and I stood up, holding the box and looking through it. There were a few layers of items, despite the small size of the box. The top layer was a bunch of little black covered books. I didn’t bother to look through them though, pulling them out and setting them onto the stack of boxes behind me. The second layer of items in the box consisted of Pokéballs, a tiny box labeled “Johto badges” and a small belt with spaces for holding Pokéballs inside. That convinced me that this was the right box.

   I was about to walk out of the closet with the box when I noticed something under the second layer of items. I pulled out the belt and the gym badge box to see a yellow hat. I turned and set the box down behind me, then pulled it out to look at it and two horn things (that I am assuming are… _ears_ …) fell down in the back of it. I stared at it, a faint, small feeling of ownership coming over me. I didn’t remember this hat…but I felt remembrance transferring into my hands…

   Something slipped out of the box and I heard it fall out to the floor from behind me. I turned to see another sketchbook on the ground. I leaned down to close it. It had strange intricate drawings of a stone or orb of some sort…I grimaced and sweat dropped. _What the heck was with my past and drawing? When people told me I used to draw, I had imagined people…_

   I suddenly heard a creak on the carpet in the room and felt a presence gazing upon me. I looked back up at the wall, and slowly turned me head around. Leaning against the doorway to the closet space was a young looking woman in a nightgown.

   As I stared at her, a horrible realization came over me. My eyes went wide with worry and terror as I realized that the woman standing there yawning… _was my mother._

   Much as I wanted to go out on this Pokémon journey, I couldn’t say anything to her; I just stared at her, a million thoughts and possibilities on how this could turn out streaming through my mind, twelve at a time. She glanced down at me, face untouched with any sign of anger…or happiness…or any emotion for that matter. I couldn’t say anything; I also couldn’t think of anything to say…

   She looked up at the ceiling. “So you’re leaving…” she noted aloud to herself. “…ah, that’s good.” She sighed, moving off of the wall and turning her back to me. “You needed to do _something_ …” She sat down on the couch in a relaxing position.

   I knelt awkwardly, not really knowing what to do after such an unexpected confront. I stood, and picked up the sketch book and threw it into another box. I lifted the box with my Trainer items and walked out of the closet, squeezing through the stacks of boxes. I walked past the couches, and turned to look at my mother. She was lounging now against the armrest; watching something on the news, paying no attention to my actions…as if she suspected what I would do next…

   I closed my eyes and turned away. I got to the doorway leading into the hallway and I heard her look up at me. “Where are your glasses?” she asked curiously, the nagging personality I had known before seeping in. I turned to her puzzled. “I-I have glasses?” I asked bewildered. I could see perfectly. She frowned at me as if I was lying, and then her face softened. “Oh that’s right…when you came back they were gone…” she faded off, reabsorbed in the television. I shuffled my feet to fill in the awkward silence (or was it just awkward for me? I can’t tell anymore…)

   “…I can see perfectly now…” I noted, trying to get her to say more. She nodded absentmindedly, focusing all attention into the TV. I stood there, not knowing what else to do. Biting my lip in punishment for the awkward moments, I turned and walked out into the hallway, up to the door. It wasn’t until I had gotten across the room and had opened the door when I noticed that, for the first time since I had woken up here in New Bark…that my mother had actually forgotten that I had lost my memory…

   I looked down, the wind throwing my hair to the side; and then I looked up, and took a step out.


	2. Chapter 2

   I walked steadily up the hill that closed in New Bark. My legs had just begun to get tired, but I kept walking, ignoring the strain beneath my knees. But the strain was worth it; in the near distance, I could see the clock tower I had always watched before. There were Pokémon sitting on it again, poking around like that one Pokémon had done by my window earlier this morning. I smiled softly. I was still enclosed in a forest, but the spacing was clearing up, and I could see sunlight streaming through the leaves.

   As I usually did when I was outside, I felt a lot calmer about myself and the feelings inside me faded away. My soul just seemed to lift up from the hole it had created when I was with my family.   I pondered this for a few moments, as I continued walking. My family...I wouldn’t be seeing them for…whoever knows how long…

   No…My mind didn’t accept this. I had been with them for months now…I couldn’t imagine not waking up in that brown room, sunlight flowing in, gently waking me from my sleep. I couldn’t wrap my head around not being with them anymore…It really didn’t matter now; how my mother made me hate my very existence, made me guilty of something I could not help, punished me for something that I didn’t do…

   At that I frowned slightly. Why had I thought of that?

   _But,_ I thought, continuing to walk, a bit more motivated, the strain fading away. _I don’t regret this. Not one bit. I…I’m glad to be away from them…_ I took a giant step over a fallen tree and looked ahead at the building spread out in front of me. _I just can’t believe that this is happening…_

  I walked further up the path, heart beginning to pick up a bit of speed. The trees around me swayed as my pace advanced quickly. The building got closer into sight as I transgressed from the old dirt pathway to the concrete sidewalk. I slowed down on the sidewalk, and looked all around me. The bell tower was beside me as I walked up to the door. It was a light blue-white color. I looked up at it, squinting at the top. It stretched up to the sky, and from under it, it was much harder to see the top. It seemed so different from my little room.

   The door approached me, and I took a breath and stopped. As I reached my hand up to the door, I realized I had no idea what to do. _What do I do? What do I do? What am I supposed to say to Professor Elm? Ask him for my old Pokémon back? I don’t even know how to get to Kanto…don’t even know where it is!_

   I stood there, frozen, silently yelling at myself and restricting myself from banging my head or injuring myself for sheer idiocy when the door opened. A kind faced man held it open for me, smiling friendly at me. “Hello,” he said, beckoning inside. “Did you wish to speak to the professor?”

  I stared at him, eyes wide in surprise. I hadn’t seen him approach the door. “Uh, yes I did…actually. I wanted to talk to him about training…I mean, becoming a trainer…” I was at a complete loss. I didn’t know what to do. Jacob wasn’t clear on how to approach this…I wish I could go back and ask him. My expression didn’t change as I yelled back at myself in response. No; are you crazy? You can’t just show back up, it’d be too weird. You can’t go back, you wouldn’t leave again; you’d chicken out. You’ve got to continue.

  I smiled sheepishly at the man. He had short cut brown hair, and was rather short and frail-looking. His smile hadn’t left his face. “That’s quite all right,” he said cheerfully, beckoning me in again. “We can help get you a good Pokémon,” he added, following me in. “We help beginning trainers out all the time.”

  I looked around the room; there was a small reception desk with bookshelves and machinery splitting the room with one passage way to the back of the building. The man continued on past me, going through the passage way up the stairs on the other side of the room. “Professor Elm isn’t very busy at the moment, he’ll be glad to help you.” He said, beginning to ascend the stairwell. He stopped, and looked down at me. ”I’m his lab assistant, Dr. Arborvitae,” he said, before continuing up the stairs. I followed up the steps quickly, resulting in a lot of noise. I winced. I’m so obvious.

  The top of the stairs revealed another style of shelves blocking off the other side of the room. There was a hallway to my left, but nothing there told me anything about Professor Elm’s whereabouts. I continued to look around the sunlight filled room as I followed Dr. Arborvitae through another passage way to the other side. I saw a tall skinny man hunched over a large machine, apparently trying to fix whatever was inside.

  Arborvitae knocked on a shelf, and Elm’s face appeared from the inside of the machine, caked in light brown dirt on his cheeks. He looked a bit fazed from being pulled away from his work. “What is it Henry?” he asked Arborvitae then glanced over to me. “Who’s this? A trainer?”

  I hope he didn’t recognize me. I really hope my mom hadn’t mentioned to them I had lost my memory. I didn’t want to see that old Pokémon of mine. I didn’t want to explain myself.

  “She’s a beginning trainer,” Arborvitae started, but Elm began to walk closer to us, his face etched in skeptic thought. He was looking at my face, as though he had seen it before, but could not remember who it belonged to. I took a breath, praying he wouldn’t recognize me…

  He leaned away from me suddenly, as if from surprise. He continued to look, his muscles relaxing. He turned away, unable to face me as he said “Your croconaw isn’t…here.” I blushed a deep red, embarrassed to be recognized. Arborvitae looked from Elm to me and to Elm again. “You two…You…? That croconaw we got about four months ago was…?”

  I stood there, eyes closed tightly. Elm walked over and smacked Arborvitae on the backside of his head. “This is what I get, having the ‘new guy’ working with me while the others are out.” He said, gesturing to Arborvitae with his thumb. “The other assistants are out of field.”

  “Sir, please,” Arborvitae said, rubbing the back of his head. “I’ve been a good aide for these past six months; there isn’t any need for more teasing…” He turned to me. “I apologize for not recognizing you,” he said seriously. “It’s nice to meet you Emily Shigahiro.”

  “Formalities aside Henry, what Emily needs is a new Pokémon.” Elm said, brushing past the both of us. He walked back over to the machine, pulling up a lever underneath it and lifting a panel off, revealing several Pokéballs, fitted into individual inverts in the machine. He turned to me, a smile etched onto his face.

  “All right Emily,” he said, moving aside for me to get a better look. “Pick your Pokémon; choose one from the seven here.”  
  I tentatively walked over next to Elm, peering into the machine that held them. Elm outstretched his hand and put his hand on my shoulder as I got next to him. I put my head closer to them, seeing the tiny Pokémon inside each individual Pokéball.

  There were several. Most of them weren’t focused on me, only looking up at Elm monotone like, others happily; but there was one staring up. At me. It looked a bit like a fox-cat type animal, with long outstretched ears. It was brown, and had a tiny mane around its neck. I smiled at it a bit. Its eyes lit up at me, and it licked its paw.

  “AH, so Eevee seems to be taking a likening to you huh?”

   I jumped. I had forgotten that Elm was standing right next to me. It was if I had been in a trance, with just me and this Pokémon. He reached over in front of me, grabbing the Pokéball that contained the Pokémon. He held it up over my head and pointed it towards Arborvitae, and hit the button in the center.

   Arborvitae stood there, clutching his clipboard, almost trembling, as a flashing ray of purple light emitted from the Pokéball. A white silhouette of the Pokémon appeared at his feet, and suddenly it was there, shaking its head from the after shock of the calling.

  “Vee, Eevee,” it cried, opening its eyes and smiling over at me. I smiled back, kneeling down a bit. It ran over to me, nuzzling against my leg.  
“Well!” Elm said pleasantly. “This is remarkable. Never before have I seen a Pokémon warm up to someone that quickly, even when you had gotten your first Pokémon. This Eevee and you sure have hit it off well.”

  I looked down at the Eevee, beginning to pet it. It responded to my touch, pushing its head into my hand. I smiled again, continuing to stroke its head.

  Elm kneeled besides me, leaning in, observing the Eevee with me, his hand once again on my shoulder. “You can nickname it if you’d like,” he said, smiling along with me at the Eevee. “Would you like to?”

  I looked over at him, then back at the Eevee. A name? I had just met the Pokémon; how could he expect me to name it so quickly? Names were important; they determined fate and life and…and I didn’t even know if this Pokémon was a boy or a girl!

  Looking at the Eevee rubbing itself against my hand, I thought of how outgoing it was, and how I was almost the opposite. It warmed right up to me, while I was hesitant; with it and everyone else around me. It had the traits of a leader, at least, based on the descriptions I thought a natural leader should have. It was right to be my starter, the leader of my Pokémon team…

  “Genevieve.” I said suddenly, looking up at the bookcase. Elm glanced over at me, Arborvitae looking slightly confused. “This Eevee’s name, I mean.” I replied quickly, looking back down at it again, flustered. “It…is a girl…isn’t it?”

  Elm laughed, and leaned onto the floor besides me, looking at the Eevee from a lower angle. Arborvitae turned away embarrassedly as I watched Elm with my nose upturned slightly. He sat back up with a smile. “It’s a girl all right!” he said almost too proudly. “And Genevieve is her name!”

  He handed me the Pokéball that belonged to Genevieve, and reached into his pocket, pulling out a pink handheld machine. He hit a switch and it flipped open, revealing a touch screen with little switches on the bottom. “Your mother sent us this as well, your old Pokégear,” he said, handing it to me. “But since you’ve come all this way, I figure you should have it back. It is, after all, yours.”

  I took it, looking at it. There were four different switches running across the bottom of the screen. I flipped it over, looking at the back. It was pink and white, but a yellow insignia was printed on the lock holding the two sides together. It looked like two halves of a Pokéball, connected through one side. I attempted to close the machine by pushing the two sides down together, but with no luck. Elm took it from me, hitting a button, the other side sliding back on. He handed it back humorously. I put it in my own pocket, pursing my lip back embarrassedly.

  “If you go back down the main path, you’ll reach a crossroad.” Arborvitae said, approaching the two of us steadily. “Take your right and continue that pathway to reach Cherrygrove City.” He looked at his watch. “There should be a boat from the Hoenn region arriving there soon, so you’ll want to reach Cherrygrove before then to avoid any confusion.” He handed me some spray bottles. “These are Potions. They can heal your Pokémon before they faint in a battle. Revives heal your Pokémon before they faint, and I’d give you some, but I’m all out.” He shrugged. “Besides, it’s much better to train without them to get used to battling carefully, putting your Pokémon before personal afflictions.”

  I nodded, putting the items given in my bag. I stood up, with Genevieve looking up at me, yipping for more attention. I picked her up and held her to me. “Thank you both,” I said. “So much. Really,” I said, looking down at the Eevee. “I…I’m really grateful.”

  “This isn’t a time for speeches, go out to Cherrygrove!” Elm said jokingly, guiding me towards the passageway in between the shelves. I walked out, still clutching Genevieve to my chest. “Goodbye!” I called back happily, feeling content, Vivi rubbing against me. “Bye,” I heard Elm and Arborvitae say in unison. I stepped down the steps lightly, the added weight making this more challenging.

  I let myself out, putting Vivi on the ground next to me as I pushed the door open. When the fresh air blew onto the both of us she began to run around me, feeling everything outside in her reach.

  I laughed and began walking slowly, keeping her close to me, hoping she wouldn’t run off. “I don’t want you to run off,” I said, pulling out her Pokéball, “but I don’t want to confine you into this tight space.” I put it back in my bag and pulled out the Pokégear. I opened it and hit the app with the picture of a map. The screen went black for a few moments, but then a map spread of a large land mass appeared on the screen. Atop the image was a box with letters inside. Well, that’s great, I thought sourly, I still can’t read.

  Thankfully there was a GPS installed on the Pokégear, and I was able to locate myself. Apparently I was still in New Bark, even though Elm’s lab was on a hill out of the town. I kept walking down the path, engrossed in the machine, Vivi still at my side. I grew comfortable with her presence besides me, and did not continue to worry what to do if she ran off. I was walking the right way, so I just needed to walk through the correct crossroad when it came up…

  Vivi suddenly turned right, scrambling away from my leg. I doubled back in surprise, and clicked the Pokégear shut, sliding it back into my pocket. “Vivi!” I called out to it, beginning chase. “Genevieve! Come back!”

  Vivi ran past trees with no struggle; I, on the other hand, was having a hard time keeping the chase up, my side starting to ache. She didn’t let up, until she stopped in front of a tree, around my height. She began to hiss at it, then ran over to me, then back to the tree, then to me again.

  I walked over to the tree and pushed the leaves away, peering inside. There was a green seed inside it. I picked it out, looking at it. I put it up to my nose to sniff its aroma. It smelled oddly like grass, despite looking like it had never left the tree. I peered inside the tree again, noticing more of the seeds. I looked at the one I held. I didn’t know what it was, but I’d better hold onto it, just in case. I looked back at the seeds in front of me. I don’t really need more than one, I thought, contemplating whether to take another or not. For all I know, they could be bad to have.

  I put it in a separate pouch in my bag, hoping it would resist damage. I snapped my fingers towards Genevieve, walking away. She bounded after me, completely forgetting what she had run over to the tree for.

  I had walked away to the left of the tree, because a thick forest had surrounded the tree to the other directions. There was a little cliff ledge in front of me, and I picked up Vivi and slid down it, putting her and my bag onto my lap.

  The ledge wasn’t that far down, and I got up with not too much dirt on my pants. I put Vivi down and looked to my right. I could see the city entrance only a few meters away. I began walking towards it eagerly, Genevieve running after. Around the gateway I paused; looking down at Vivi, I pulled out her Pokéball resentfully. “Sorry Vivi,” I said halfheartedly, clicking the button to call her back inside her Pokéball, “but I don’t want you to get lost in all the confusion I’m about to go through…”

  I walked into the city, looking around at all the sights. There was a main based color in New Bark, and that was light blue-green. It was so mildly noticed though, that no one ever paid notice to it. In Cherrygrove though, their color seemed too obvious and outstanding to ignore. Every house, every building, minus two buildings nearest to my right, were bright pink. Pink roofs, pink walls-heck, every house had little flower patches, with flowerbeds long every exit/pathway in and out of the city.

  _Well, I can see why they called it **Cherry** -grove…_

  A large dong sounded ahead, and I looked up to see a huge cruise liner docking further back in the city, people already beginning to exit it, streaming to the sidewalks. I frowned. My detour in the woods had slowed me down. Instead of getting to Cherrygrove before the boat arrived, I got here at the same time! Great, I thought bitterly, shifting weight onto one side of my body, leaning to the right. Now I’m going to get stuck in confusion…and I don’t know anything about the city anyways-or even Pokémon for that matter! Argh why does this keep happening…?!

  I sighed deeply, beginning to walk, bag slung on my elbow, arms bent upward. I went towards the only noticeable exit from the city, starting to pick up speed when I saw the boat passengers sprawling out all over the city. An arm extended in front of me and I doubled back, nearly running straight past it. An short old man sitting in a white park bench was who the arm had belonged to, and he grabbed my hand, standing up. “Hello,” he said, smiling warmly. “You’re a rookie trainer, aren’t you?”

  “Er, you could say so,” I said awkwardly, looking over at the large group. They were starting to make their way over, and I wanted to get in front of them as soon as possible. The man seemed to ignore this.

  “Oh so you are a rookie trainer? I can tell!” he exclaimed, shaking my hand, his eyes closed. He gave a slight chuckle. “But that’s okay,” he continued, just as cheerfully, “everyone is a rookie at some point!”

  “Is that so…” I stated, staring off at the passengers. It seemed the stream headed off the dock wouldn’t end. It pained me; I could see them headed this way. If I didn’t hurry, the pathway leading out of Cherrygrove was going to be blocked off, and I’d be stuck here…

  “Oh it is so indeed! Even I was a rookie once…” the man laughed again. “Of course that was a long, long, long time ago…Say, I’ve got an idea! I could teach you a few things, if you’d like. Would you like to learn from an old timer like me?”

  I bit my lip in slight annoyance. “Oh that’s…no, I’ve really got to…” I trailed off, watching the horde of people walk towards us.

  “Excellent!” The man said, beginning to walk towards the building by the bench that we were standing in front of. I was dragged along, my bag sliding down to my hand. I reached over to pull it back up to my shoulder but the old man stopped, and I nearly ran into him for a second time. He looked at the buildings ahead of the two of us. “This building, with the red roof,” he said, gesturing to the right, “is the Pokémon Center. You’ll go here when your Pokémon need to be healed. You may come here more so than others or vice versa. Either way, it’s important that you know about it, just in case an emergency occurs.”

  I stared over at it. “So the building with the red roo-oof!”

  I was being dragged again, not too far, but still enough to make me loose my balance. I steadied myself and looked to the building the two of us were standing in front of now. It was about the same height as the Center, but was smaller, and had a blue roof instead of a red one.

  “This is the Poké-Mart,” the man said. “Mart is short for ‘Market.’ They sell everything a Trainer needs, like Pokéballs and Potions…”

  I zoned out of what he was saying, due to the familiarity of the vocabulary he was using. Instead, I tried to avoid being noticed by the other people passing by us, some shoving, to get to the two buildings we had just learned about.

  Some people gave me odd looks. I blushed, pulling my jacket tighter around me. In New Bark, it wouldn’t have been weird to wear a jacket in August, as that was when the wind would act up and it would start to get a bit chilly. But here in Cherrygrove, I couldn’t sense any wind at all, other than the kind made by other people. The sun was up high above, and the heat had intensified since earlier this morning in New Bark town.

  The man made a movement to continue walking, and for once, I was prepared. Or so I thought. He didn’t move from his spot. He turned towards me, looking rather depressed.

  “Ah, but I had wanted to continue showing you the town” he said sadly, letting go of my hand. “But the passengers have blocked the way into Route 30…”

  I extended my fingers in annoyance and frustration. I had expected this. This is what I was warned of…and now it had happened.

  The man continued, again ignoring any facial expressions I had that would have hinted him to remain silent. “I wanted to show you the docks, and the sea, and then take you to visit my house…”

  “Oh that’s quite fine.” I told him. Well, that’s one good thing to the boat arriving the same time as me, I thought, slightly revolted at the mental image I got of this man’s home. He smiled up at me, reaching into his pockets. “Here rookie,” he said, pulling out a handful of tiny nearly flat squares. “Do you got a Pokégear that needs a map?”

  I paused, pulling out my Pokégear. “A map?” I asked, flipping it open to show it to the man. “Yeah I’ve got a map; its how I got over here.”

  The man frowned, and looked up at me. “You’ve already got a map?” He asked with a bit of surprise and shock in his voice. I hadn’t noticed it before, but up to this point, everything he had said before sounded slightly scripted, as if he had said this to millions of rookies before. Now he sounded genuine.

  “Bu-but that’s not possible,” he stuttered, “You can’t have a Town Map on your Pokégear if you’re a rookie…unless…”

  The crowd suddenly pushed, and I felt myself getting swept up in a group of people headed towards Route 30. I hadn’t seen the crowd get so thick, and I let out a gasp in surprise, and struggled to keep up with the pace of the people, lest I get trampled. “Wait girl!” I heard the man call out. “Wait!”

  I strained my head to look over at him, but three heads blocked my view. I turned around, embarrassed to be looking at them and continued forth with the crowd.

  Once we went past the borders of Cherrygrove, only five trainers continued ahead. The rest of them seemed to realize they had made a direction error, and turned around back to the city. I let out a sigh and fell to my knees. I’d never been around so many people at once-minus the children living in New Bark. I’d get dizzy whenever they were around, but having so many people surrounding me at once, pushing me to an unknown place…I shuddered. That wasn’t a fun experience.

  I stood up, and began to walk forward. There was another ledge in my way, but instead of climbing it, I noticed a stairwell right by it, and climbed that up to the top of the ledge instead. There were two ways I could go through here, one with another ledge but without a stairwell and one through tall grass. I tilted my head, trying to see over the grass to the other side. I couldn’t; the grassland was too vast. I shrugged; it made no difference to me, and began to walk through it. The grass went up to my shin, and I was once again grateful that I was wearing jeans. I continued on, reaching a bit of rocky terrain. The grass subsided away. I looked all around me, my pace not slowing.

  There were hills around me, with only one way to go. I stared at the trees atop the hills, not paying attention to where I was walking…

  “WOOH!” I exclaimed, the ground suddenly leaving my foot. I stumbled down into a crater of some sort, landing on my stomach. I squinted up and groaned, pushing myself back onto my knees. How much more dirt could my pants take?

  “EEEP!” I heard a screech, and some shuffling. I looked over to see a lumped over bag, trembling something vicious. I stood up and walked over curiously.

  “Wh-who are you? Please don’t hurt me, PLEASE!!!” The bag squealed, the trembling continuing. I knelt down besides it.

  “Is there a person in there?” I asked it.

  “NO.” the voice deadpanned, “there’s a…a…tomato clefairy in here. Of course there’s someone in here, there aren’t random ditches dug out for fun! IftherewereI’dfallintothemallthetimeandpeoplewouldlaughatmeand WAAAHHH! I hate being laughed aaaaat!!”

  The bag ended its rant in a burst of small short sobs and gasps for breath. I stayed there, kneeling, not knowing exactly what to do. I considered putting my had around what appeared to be shoulders but decided it would make it worse if a stranger had gotten in your personal space.

  This…girl, lets say...looked like she had just put all her stuff out and set up a makeshift camp. Turning behind me, I saw there actually was a staircase and I had just taken the ledge into the pit. Looking in front of me again, I saw there was another set of stairs, leading back to level ground. There were personal belongings and supplies all over the pit, but there was a clean pathway leading from one stairwell to the next across from it. I leaned down, face to the clean path. The ground was solid, but I could see the trace of footprints etched into the rock. There were a lot of people that went through here…a lot…It looks like this girl just got off the boat, and wanted to get out quick enough to set up camp…but everyone just trampled through…

  Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t put my arm on her shoulder. Talk about a lack of personal space.

  I stood up and backed away from her. Her little hysteria settled shortly, and she poked her head through the bag.

  The first thing I noticed about her was that she was wearing a cat on her head. Obviously a hat, but…there was fur on it too. The cat looked about the opposite of her. Its expression seemed happy, ecstatic almost-she looked rather timid. She had black rectangle glasses, and black shoulder length hair. Her hands weren’t shaking, but I noticed them just the same; they were really tiny. She had put them out to pull the bag from her head, but still held it close in case she needed to duck back under.

  I looked at her face quickly. She was staring at mine. I looked down and blushed. I hope she wasn’t looking at my traits. I felt guilty for doing it to her.

  “Sorry,” I half muttered, half said to her, continuing to look down at my shoes. “I uh…didn’t see where I was going. A bit preoccupied with the…” I sighed deeply. There seemed no way around this. “With the…trees.”

  The bag covering her slid down so I could see her shirt and the rest of her outfit. She was wearing a red jacket with black cuffs at her hands. Her jeans were jet black, and her shoes were a dirty smoky red color. Her expression seemed to soften at my words, but she still seemed to be keeping a front.

  I leaned back casually, picking up a twig and twirling it around aimlessly. I felt a bit like Marisa-my mother-while doing it, but it felt right at the moment. I cringed anyways, but looked back forward, smiling weakly. “I just got pulled through the crowd,” I said absent-mindedly, not stopping my twirling. "They were really rough."

  I received no reply. I leaned forward, arms around knees and smiled at her. "I'm really sorry about the intrusion." I said, pushing on my knees to stand up. "If I had seen the stairs, I definitely would have taken them instead."

  She seemed to calm her expression subtly-I noticed a change-and I walked towards her, extending my hand. "I'm Emily, by the way." I said, kneeling down to her again. "Nice to meet you."

  Her hand slowly went from her bag into my hand. "I'm...Michelle..." she said hesitantly, but still giving off a small smile.

 "Hi Michelle," I said, grinning.

  Something caught my eye off to the side. I turned to look, noticing a small black book beside Michelle's backpack... I leaned over to it skeptically, releasing Michelle's hand. It was familiar in a way...

  My mind flashed back to my house, in the closet this morning, where my Pokemon trainer things had been. The little black sketchbook I had opened back there matched this one that Michelle had.

  "You draw?" I asked, leaning back from it. Michelle nodded.

  "All the time-ever since I was little."

  "Sounds like me..." I trailed off quietly, more to myself than to anyone else.

  I picked up the sketchbook, pointing it towards her. "Mind if I look at them?"

  "Go ahead."

  I opened up the book, feeling the rough texture of the cover. There were sketches of Pokemon and people interacting with them. I flipped through the pages, finding more sketches of such, some of the people and Pokemon repeating. No doubt she knew the figures she was drawing; they were drawn in such detail, no one could forge a person with their imagination alone to make them look that real...

  "My gosh," I said, looking at the pages. "These are amazing!" I thought of the few images I had seen drawn in my own sketchbook, with a tang of jealousy. Michelle's face lit up.

  "Really? Thanks! I'm friends with Burgh-the gym leader in Castelia City-and he taught me how to draw and-"

  "Castelia?" I interrupted curiously. "Where is that?"

  "Oh yeah, I forgot I was in Johto..." Michelle blushed at her mistake. "Castelia is where I'm from-in the Unova region."

  "Unova?" I repeated, recognizing nothing from the name, "I've never heard of it. Is it far away?"

  "Huh? You've never heard of the Unova region?" Confusion echoed this question. "It's kind of far...I _did_ have to take three different ships to get here..."

  "So you were on the ship that just docked?"

  "Yep."

  "Cool," I said, smiling again. "I'm from New Bark; I just got here to Cherrygrove when the boat landed. I was stuck in all that confusion," I laughed.

  "Well, I'm sure it would have been a bit easier for you, having grown up in this area." Michelle laughed back.

  "Uh...no actually," I said, crossing my legs on top of each other. “I…uh…”

  I stopped. I’d never told anyone this; never told anyone about my memory loss. Of course, everyone I’d ever come in contact with had known it, but…how would she respond? How did I know that it was a good idea to tell her…that I had no past?

  I looked at her. She seemed very interested in what I was about to say. I bit my lip and inhaled deeply. I was getting no bad vibe, nothing that told me to stop…but I didn’t know what one felt like. I mean, I’d get them all the time when in the same room as Marisa, but…was this different?

  “I’ve never really went this way.” I said casually. It wasn’t a complete lie.

  “Oh…I suppose I’d like it, if I had come at a time when there weren’t so many people.” Michelle said. “That down-set things a bit.”

  “Yeah…” I said, trailing off. We seemed to run out of things to talk about. I wondered where the boat had set off from. Maybe it was in Kanto; I could get to Vermilion much faster if that was the case.

  I was about to open my mouth to ask when I heard pounding footprints. I looked over to Michelle and saw she had heard them too; she was looking up the ledge of the pit curiously.

  The sources of the noise were two little boys, probably no less than eight years old. _Around the same age as the kids in the neighborhood at New Bark…_

  They were running, laughing loudly and obnoxiously to each other. I frowned. I snuck a look at Michelle, who turned out to be frowning as well.

  The youngsters got to the pit, and silently jumped in, one on either side of Michelle and I, us against the wall of the pit, them blocking the stairs. Hands on hips, they stared down at us.

  “Who do _you_ think you are?” one of them sneered at Michelle. She shrank a little in her position. The boy continued, advancing towards her. “Sneaking ahead of all the _trainers_ to get a head start?”

  I stood up, blocking him from Michelle. He glared up at me, his eyebrows twitching in anger. He wasn’t very tall, but I felt that his confidence changed drastically as I stood up. He wasn’t as intimidating as before.

  “And _who_ are _you_?” He sneered at me this time. I noticed his over use of emphasis and snickered and rolled my eyes internally.

  “How about you, brat?” I picked up some insults from the kids in New Bark. This one seemed to anger them the most. This kid, however, just scoffed at me.

  “Why you even hanging out with the scared-ey cat there?” He thrust his head towards Michelle. “You don’t look very tough; she sure ‘aint gonna protect you.”

  He tilted his head towards his crony, who began to walk towards Michelle menacingly. I swung towards him, intervening his movement, and I saw the other kid swoop down and grab something small and black. _Her sketchbook!_ I thought, gasping a bit. The two kids ran up the other steps, laughing mockingly. I turned around to see Michelle hovered over the place where her sketchbook used to be. Her face was scrunched in panic, and she jerked her head to face me.

  “They took my sketchbook!” she cried. I looked after them.

  “Were they on the boat with you?”

  “Yeah they were with the other trainers getting ready to get out and cover the route. But please!” she pleaded, “I _need_ my sketchbook back! I’ve got to have it back! Can you help me, please!”

  I jumped back. “Yeah, I’ll help,” I said, turning to bolt after them, “I think they turned left up here.”

  I tore off, leaving Michelle behind. I soon reached the turn, and swerved to their path. I could see their silhouettes ahead. They had slowed down significantly. I didn’t though.

  I was about twenty feet from them before they turned around and screamed at the sight of me. They started to run again, turning another left, into the woods. I turned with them.

  We went that way for awhile before they let up at a clearing in the woods. We were on a grassy cliff, overlooking the water. To the far left, I could see Cherrygrove. The boat looked like it was getting ready to sail out. “NO!” I called out to the sailors. “WAIT!!”

  The message was missed by them. I groaned, smacking my hand to my forehead.

  I heard rustling behind me. I turned to see the two kids sneaking towards the way back into the forest, them pausing when we made eye contact. I also saw Michelle trudging along the entrance to the clearing. She was panting.

  “For…future reference,” she gasped, holding her hand up, her other hand on her knees, “do not…run ahead of me like it’s a marathon…”

  “Sorry.”

  She nodded and turned to the kids, who were right next to her at that point. “Now give it back to me,” she said coldly, pulling out a Pokéball, holding it towards them. “Or I’ll show you how much of a trainer I am.”

  The crony backed away, but his leader stayed put. His look of fear was wiped away at the opportunity of a challenge and he yanked out his own Pokéball with an obnoxious smirk on his face.

  The two of them stared each other down when a blue sphere appeared behind the two boys. I jumped back in surprise, marveling at the sheer randomness of its appearance. Michelle had shoved her Pokéball back and stepped away quickly, leaving the two boys staring at her confusedly. They looked to each other and slowly turned their heads to see the sphere behind them.

  At this point in time, the sphere had been moving up so quickly that its identity was more clear; it was a balloon, with a basket large enough to stand in hanging underneath it. I frowned in skepticism, and looked into the basket, now above the ledge. There were two men in all black, minus the two white symbols put on the front of their shirts, standing back to back in the basket. Both of them wore black newsboy hats, almost posing for a photo-shoot. The man on the left reached the side of the basket and threw down a weight, landing with a muffled _klunk_ onto the grass on the cliff. The weight held the balloon in place with thick rope, which both men proceeded to swing out on, speeding down, grabbing their Pokéballs out. The Pokéballs opened with a red flash, and erupted into white powdered specks floating down towards us four.

  I backed away instinctively, but leaned forward to get a better look. The two boys stood there, dumbfounded.

  Michelle was the only one who acted as if she knew what the white dust was.

  She jumped back with a gasp. “No! Guys, get back!” She exclaimed to me and the boys. “Get back! It’s a move, it’s Sleep Powder!”

  I looked at her perplexed. The two boys gave a bit more of a reaction, and darted back to where Michelle stood.

  By this point in time, the two men had reached the ledge. They were standing in front of me, glaring at the two boys cowering in front of Michelle. She was standing her ground, glaring at the two men. “It’s illegal to attack Trainers unguarded,” she spat out at them. They smiled casually.

  “Unova girl, right? Perhaps you’re not used to us Johto bad guys,” the one on the right said, taking a step towards them. They both ignored me, as though I was invisible to them.

  “No! I know exactly who you lot are,” Michelle said coolly, “Team Rocket.”

  The man closest to Michelle laughed. He acted like the leader of the two person group. “Educated, are you? Aren’t you surprised to see us then? After all these years-”

  “Actually, no, I’m not,” Michelle interrupted, stepping back and gasping a little when she saw there was no more ground behind her, only water below. “I-I…I’m not surprised, because you had disbanded nearly…some however years ago and reformed three years after.”

  “And were put back into our places again.”

  “Obviously not, considering you’re standing here.”

  “We can play games any other time,” the grunt’s crony in front of me grumbled out. The man near Michelle smiled sinisterly. “I’ll have no quarrel with you, being so well informed of our organization,” he said, leaning away from her face, hand on his heart. “I’m honored by it, actually. Our little humble group, known by a girl from the other side of this depressing landmass. But our real business,” he continued, looking down at the two kids with a dark look on his face, “is with this bunch. You! runt,” he said, kneeling down at the kid who had taken Michelle’s sketchbook. “What’s your name?”

  “J-Jaden,” he squeaked. The boy beside him whispered “Michael.”

  “Well brats, you should’ve known better than to go around that boat bossing even _us_ around!” The rocket grunt yelled at them, grabbing ahold of their shirt collars. He began to drag them off. Michelle grabbed their hands and the grunt looked back at her, tiny smile emerging onto his face. “You want to stop us? I’m sure these brats were snapping at you too, Skitty-kid,” he said, adding in a pet name that Michelle didn’t take to kindly. She let go with a gasp and the grunt continued dragging them off.

  They had forgotten about me though. I stepped in between the crony and the grunt with the kids. The crony groaned. The grunt smirked.

  “Can I help you in any way?” I gave no response.

  He looked at me for the first time. “That’s funny,” he said, checking out my appearance. “I’d have remembered a girl like you on the boat. You from around here?”

  I didn’t answer. Instead I reached into my pocket, pulling out my Eevee’s Pokéball. He looked up understandingly. He was looking up when he dropped the two kids, who were, by now, unconscious. He shoved his hands into his pockets, puling out two Pokéballs with a gleeful look on his face. “A snot-nosed teen verses my two Pokémon, whom I’ve had since childhood,” he said, looking me in the eyes with gleam. “This should be quick.”

  A noise was heard behind and we turned to see Michelle holding a Pokéball out at the grunt, the Pokémon all ready to be released. The grunt readjusted his position to face the both of us, holding his Pokémon out to each of us. The three of us simultaneously released the monsters from our Pokéballs, each of them appearing on the ground in front of us. Michelle’s Pokémon was a pink lamb, shooting electric sparks at the Pokémon owned by the Team Rocket member. His Pokémon facing Michelle’s was a large blue rock. It was shaped like a human, but had red marks on its arms and a giant belt around its waist. The other was a sea clam of some sort, with a horn appearing through a tiny gap within the center of it. I could see eyes piercing through the hole deep within the darkness that engulfed it.

  Michelle and the Rocket grunt’s Pokémon were glaring at each other, already knowing that they were enemies. The giant shell Pokémon was gleaming menacingly at Vivi, but Vivi was bouncing around, eager to explore her surroundings, nipping at the grass, sniffing Michelle, poking its head towards the shell Pokémon.

  I winced, sweat dropping in the process. I’d never fought in a battle before… _how am I going to get through with Vivi? She’s never fought either. And these guys, sad to say, look really tough…I just hope Michelle is…_

  A clash went on besides me and I turned to see the two Pokémon battling it out. Michelle’s Pokémon was sparking the giant blue human monster with electricity, coming from its horns, while the blue Pokémon was simply relying on its brute strength.

  I pointed a finger towards the clam in front of Vivi and I. “Vivi!” I called out. “Attack! Use…er…” I lowered my finger a bit, trying to recall the things I heard my brother shout out to the little kids in our neighborhood. “Use…Tackle!”

  Vivi gave me a look, tilting her head to the side, not comprehending what I commanded. Michelle looked over frantically. “You don’t know your Eevee’s moves?!” she asked hastily, narrowly dodging a punch from the opposing Pokémon.

  I smiled weakly, heart pounding. What did I get into?!

  Michelle commanded her Pokémon to attack again, and groaned at me. “I’m pretty sure that an Eevee can learn Headbutt…”

  “Oh, yes! It can!” I cried happily, remembering part of what Jacob taught everyone. I turned back to the clam, it still glaring wickedly at Vivi. “Vivi, use Headbutt!”

  Vivi responded instantly to this command, backing up and ramming her head into the bottom of the clam. The clam barely seemed to notice the attack, and smirked out of its barrier with a vacant expression.

  “Uh…Vivi, do it again!”

  The same results complied. I bit my lip frustrated, trying to think of some other way to go…

  A yellow spark cut across me and Vivi, piercing the inside of the clam. It screamed out in pain, and swerved to glare out at Michelle’s Pokémon, who had commenced battle with the blue Pokémon.

 _I can attack the other Pokémon?_ I thought to myself, glancing at Vivi attempting to further injure the clam. _Since Vivi’s moves aren’t working on this one, they’ll more likely have more affect on the one Michelle is fighting…_

I pointed to the blue Pokémon.“Vivi, use Headbutt!”

  Vivi attacked, surprising the Pokémon a bit, but only a little. It glared over it, kicking her back over to me. I scooped up Vivi, looking at her head, concerned. Her eyes were bulging out from the shock of being hit, and she looked dizzy.

  “What are you doing?” Michelle cried at me as the Eevee regained focus and jumped out of my hands. “Machoke is a fighting type; it’ll wipe the floor with an Eevee!”

  “Well, what’s this type?!” I asked pointing to the clam Pokémon, annoyed with the situation in general. “Eevee’s attacks aren’t affecting it at all!”

  “Cloyster is partially a water type! It gives my Flaaffy, Crayola, an advantage that I took! You said you were from Johto, shouldn’t you know this stuff?”

  “Love the coordination girls!” The grunt called out, avoiding an electric spark from Michelle’s Flaaffy. “But the fight is mine now! Cloyster!”

  I looked over to the clam Pokémon. It seemed to have recovered from its attack and began to smirk again. Its smirk started to grow…I began to see some light emerging from within the center. It seemed to glow inside, the light becoming lighter and brighter. I frowned, fear coursing through my body. Looking over out at the corner of my eye, I saw the Machoke begin to reach back to attack me and Vivi. The Cloyster’s light grew brighter still, as the Machoke approached as though in slow motion. “VIVI, USE COUNTER!”

  She jumped, startled from the tone of the command, and began to glow a light orange. I grabbed her and held her up to my face right as the Cloyster sent out a beam filled with rays of color. The move bounced back instantly as it had come in contact with Eevee’s counter move and slammed back into the Cloyster’s inner shell. It did a double take as I wrapped my hands around Vivi’s body, pulling her close. I knelt down and jumped out to my right side just as Machoke took one last step towards me to punch the empty space I had only recently stood in.

  I rose up from my landing on the ground. I lessened my grip and Genevieve bounded out, running back and examining my wellbeing. I picked her up and stood up, gazing at the fallen Machoke. He appeared to have put a lot of power into that punch, and was lying on the ground. The memory of its fierceness before I had ducked out of the way flashed through my mind again, and I took a step back cautiously.

  I turned around to see Michelle looking at me with an expression of concern mixed with fear of the Team Rocket grunt. “That’s illegal!” she said harshly, turning to him. The grunt glared fiercely at her with such an aura coming from him that Michelle turned away almost on impact. “I’m overly aware of this,” he spat out, and looked over at me with the same glare, perhaps a bit more passionately than his look to Michelle. I looked over besides him. His grunt was gazing at me, mystified by my lucky feat.

  I heard a snap of a twig and whipped around to see the grunt thrust himself towards me. I gasped, and barely got out of the way of his sudden leap at me. He stopped as soon as I pulled away, reaching out to his side, in an attempt to hit me again. I dodged, just as barely as I had before. He reached out with his other hand, and I froze for half a second from shock, and then ducked. He made a move to kick me, and I jumped out to the side again, like I had done with the Machoke.

  He continued to through punches at me, getting more and more frustrated. I remembered Jacob commencing to attack me only a few hours ago, the same fear running through my body. _Oh, if only I had known that the fight back then wasn’t real…_ I thought, almost helplessly, narrowly dodging a punch to the gut.

  “What-what are you?!” The grunt yelled out at me, continuing his attacks, me dodging them. I jumped back quickly, my hand zooming past his face. _I’m only barely dodging him…_ I thought bitterly, _how does he think I’m doing well?!_

I landed back, prepared to evade. He stood there dumbly, as if he was in a trance. I frowned. Why had he stopped..?

  His eyes quickly refocused onto me, a look of shock and disbelief etched onto his face. “She’s…she’s…” he was unable to from anything other than that. He looked over at the second Rocket grunt desperately. “Marco! It’s her…It’s her!! HER!!!”

  Marco seemed to understand his cry, and reacted almost immediately. For one of his size, I found it a bit surprising that he could whip out a Pokéball so fast and launch out a giant mushroom that jumped straight into battle as soon as it had been let out of its Pokéball. It lunged towards me, snapping its large pincers towards my body in an attempt to seize me up. It was remarkably taller than me, and I cowered under its shadow it made. Jumping out of the way of its left pincer, I slammed into the pincer on the right. It began to open, and I stumbled in, losing my balance. I covered my eyes and curled up, praying to myself that I wouldn’t be crushed…

  I smelled something burning, and suddenly felt myself being flung out of the Pokémon’s grasp. I slammed down on the edge of the cliff, scrapping my knee, thread coming through my pants. I looked out behind me and saw the mushroom on the Pokémon’s back burning, and saw Michelle had pulled out another Pokémon, a small dark blue mole, with fire on its back. Michelle was glaring at the grunt again, anger tensing up her body.

  Her expression was completely ignored by the grunts, however, as the Pokémon’s trainer shouted out an intelligible command to it. It swiped at its burn, and then began to swipe out at me. I began to back up, to the edge of the ledge. I quickly evaded its swing, and turned to see the first Rocket grunt staring me down, about to grab me…

  I flinched up inside, pulling myself away from him, eyes tightening in fear.

  _Don’t_ ** _…_** _touch_ _…_ ** _me_** _!_

  I heard an ear-piercing scream and I looked up to see the grunt being thrown back, at inhuman speed, slamming to the ground underneath the rope keeping the hot air balloon in place. He pushed himself up, groaning out in pain. “Marco…don’t...don’t let her…” he stammered out, standing up to point at me. His voice lost all traces of injury, and turned cold and serious. “Don’t let her get away.”

  I saw the second grunt lunch at me in the same fashion as the first, headfirst, hands out towards me. I slammed my eyes shut and pushed my foot down on the ground on my side. I felt his grip on my jacket, and saw a flash of white beam through my eyelids. I looked up and opened my eyes to see the grunt suspended for a moment in mid-lunge. I saw him, frozen, about to grab me…and then he too flew back like his partner, landing where the first grunt had fallen. He made no attempt to get up, but lay there, like a sack of potatoes. The first grunt kicked at him, then knelt over, trying to check his consciousness. He turned sharply, glaring at me; there was anger but…somehow…something about his expression that said he…knew something about me…

  I felt the need to break gaze with the grunt. His expression made me feel like I was shallow, that I could be seen through easily. I didn’t have much to be seen through…but still, it wasn’t a welcome expression.

  There was fear in his eyes as well, perhaps because of how they had been launched back when they had attempted to approach me. They must have not known what had caused it, which caused their fear. But… _that look in the grunts face…he had this look of knowledge about me. But…what was it…?_

  The grunt bent over to his partner again, and dragged him up. The size of the partner played a heavy factor in this, as he was sliding out of the grunt’s grip. “You paralyzed him,” he said darkly, still struggling with maintaining his partner’s weight. “He can’t move.”

  “That makes it sound like that Parasect just used stun spore on its own trainer,” Michelle said matter of factly. The grunt just glanced boredly over at Michelle, with no response.

  He pulled on the rope, and the balloon came down, the basket below the top of the ledge we stood on. He rolled his partner into the basket and jumped in, pulling the weight from its place in the ground. He leaned back as the balloon floated up, whipping out a black device. He hit a couple of buttons and held it up to his ear.

  “G? We found her.” After a brief pause, he added “It’s undoubtedly her. Same hair, eyes, face, jacket…No, no she doesn’t, but G, I saw her flash…”

  The rest of the grunts words were blocked out as the balloon went up higher and higher, floating out over the water. I stared after it, the dark blue of the balloon contrasting with the light pale blue of the sky. I was still slightly fazed by the ordeal that had just occurred, and my opinion of the call the Rocket grunt just made hadn’t formed yet; it didn’t register within me. It was just…weird…

  “I wonder…” I heard Michelle say, staring off into the distance where the Rockets had escaped to. “I wonder who ‘G’ is…It couldn’t have been the previous Team Rocket leader…”

  I turned to her. “Why do you think they…knew me?”

  She shrugged, then threw her hands up in heated frustration. “I wouldn’t know! I wouldn’t know anything! I just met you, I don’t know if you were some accomplice against Team Rocket! I just got off this boat when I wasn’t even supposed to either way, then just got brought into this mess!”

  I frowned at her curiously, brow raised. “You weren’t supposed to get off here?”

  She nodded sheepishly. “I was supposed to get off in Olivine,” she explained, kicking her foot against the grass. “To stay with my cousin, Kayci.” She added a look at hearing her cousin’s name spoken aloud and I felt some distaste as she had said it.

  “You don’t like your cousin?”

  Her face scrunched in displeasure. “No. She’s just…awful,” she finished, unable to find a word to fit the description. I sat down on the grass, arms bent over my knees. “Well…wait,” I thought aloud suddenly. I jumped to my feet and looked over at her. “Where exactly _is_ Olivine?”

  Michelle frowned skeptically at me again, and pulled out a worn aged map. She unfolded it and pointed to a city by the coast, up and to the left where the center of the map was. I looked at it for awhile, rubbing my chin curiously. A few moments later, I turned to Michelle again. “Now, where is Cherrygrove?”

  “Okay, that’s it!” Michelle groaned out loudly, snatching back the map and scrolling it back up into its case. I glanced up at her, a sinking feeling going through my body. “What? What is it?”

  She smacked her hand across her head. “You are! Why, didn’t you grow up here? Even if you never left New Bark, you should at the very least know where Cherrygrove and Olivine are located.

  “And what’s the worst, gosh, what’s the worst,” she continued, getting a little more frantic in her tirade, “is that you don’t even know how to battle~ When you were fighting that Cloyster you didn’t even know what moves your Eevee possessed! It was all sheer luck that those grunts ran off like that! And they alerted some leader named ‘G’ about you! That’s supposed to make you terrified if you really have no idea why they somehow recognize you! But no, you’re just sitting there, as if everything was normal and that you didn’t need to worry when, if you’re ‘innocent’ you should.”

  I was at a loss for words. I couldn’t think of a way to respond to her. Just about everything she had said was true. My stomach dropped just thinking about this Team Rocket.

  And what if…Michelle was right? I had no idea who ‘Emily Shigahiro’ was based off of what I picked up from my time in New Bark. Her description didn’t sound like…like _me_. So maybe she did have some kind of connection against Team Rocket…

_Or maybe she had something they wanted…_

I stood up, looking wordlessly at Michelle. "I don't know...what to say..." I trailed off. I raised my hands to grab my hair and turned around, growing frustrated. I stopped halfway, arms tightening. I sighed, releasing my arms from their position and they swung to my side.

  I spun around. "I'm from New Bark," I said, making up my mind, a new confidence and sureness appearing in my tone. "But I've only been around...for four months."

  Michelle raised an eyebrow. I continued. "Four months ago, I woke up in New Bark town looking up at strangers claiming to be my relatives." I paused. "Okay that sounds like I'm really cynical please don't see it that way because...it's really how I felt, waking up and looking at my mom and my brother..." I shook my head. "All right, I'm straying from my point. Basically, I lost my memory. And I literally just got this Eevee" I said, gesturing to Vivi who was running around in a circle, "which is why I didn't really know its moves. I had to do something though; I didn't want to just leave you and those kids even if they did take your sketchbook...Argh, straying from point again, its just that...wait, no scratch that, I'm not involved with Team Rocket in anyway now. I have no idea about before though...No one mentioned anything about it, or any traits about myself that I posses now that could have led me to...Dammit," I said, slamming my head down as if banging it onto a hard object.

  "Sorry, I...never really told this to anyone before. This feels weird. Is the crawling in my stomach mean I'm messing up? Cuz I feel like I am, I've just never done this before..."

  Michelle stayed quiet for quite awhile, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion. Finally she spoke: "Ah...um...okay let me get this straight. You just woke up one day and you didn't remember anything? Did you get bonked on the head with something? Your story isn't all that far-fetched, but how did it happen?"

  I laughed a little, easing my gut-clenching mood a bit. "I didn't get bonked on the head," I chuckled out, and then grew serious. "I mean...I could have been hit on the head or something...No one has any idea. I was found on a road to Fuchsia city unconscious with no injuries. My mom found me like that and brought me back to New Bark. I woke up there and that's where _my_ life began." I left out the unneeded details of my 'new' life, watching Michelle chew on what I just said.

  "My brother said there’d be a way to regain my memories. It requires going back to the place I fell and lost consciousness. But I don't even know where it is or how to get there exactly. All I know is what time it was and what the place looks like. It's the only thing I remember."

  "Hm...So this is in Kanto, right?" Michelle asked. "The place you're talking about?" I nodded. "I might be able to help you get there."

  "Yeah, that's what I was thinking when I was looking at your map," I said. "Olivine has a port, so maybe if we went together to get there, you could stay with your cousin and I could board a boat to...Vermilion."

  "Stay with my cousin? No way!" Michelle jumped up, making a face of disgust. “Psh, I'd rather go against those two grunts alone than stay with that brat!" Her tone changed as she continued, a little hopeful and seemingly timid, as if she was scared to ask. "Do you think I could...go with you instead?"

  She looked at Emily hopefully, but after seeing no response, she continued. "I promise not to be too much trouble! And I know a lot about Pokemon, so I could actually help!" she added quickly. She raised her hand into a fist and, holding it high above her head swung it down into an outstretched palm, the thumb pointing upward. "You just have to let me stop to draw every once in awhile. So," she said, going back to a normal position, "what do you say?"

  "What do I say?" I asked. I flushed a little, putting my hand behind my neck. I thought about my own mother's potential response, an image of her face gleering down at me, dark red aura surrounding her. "Uh...I don't want to get you in trouble with your mom or anything..."

  “Ahahaha, it's a little late for that." She grinned sheepishly and adjusted the back of her hat. "I was supposed to go straight to my cousin's house and stay there when I arrived in Johto. I decided to get off early in Cherrygrove...because I hate her guts." Her eyes narrowed and she looked away. "So, really, I'm already breaking the rules, but what my mom doesn't know won't kill her."

  "Okay, well..." My mind began brainstorming ways to avoid the mother, a skill I was pretty good at...until I couldn't buy any more time. "You could check in with your cousin and then go to Vermilion with me."

  She started to frown, but then lightened a bit. "I guess we do need a place to stay while they're there..." she shrugged and sighed. “All right. So it's a deal?"

  I smiled a bit. "Deal..." I looked over and sweat dropped a bit. "Uh...should we be worried about them?" I asked deadpanned, pointing to the unconscious kids.

  Michelle jumped and ran over to the kids. “Oh my gosh I totally forgot! The kids were so scared they fainted,” she cooed, feeling their foreheads, touching them as little as possible. “I could feel them shaking when those grunts got in their face and when I tried to grab them they were…oh the poor things…”

  It was like she completely forgot that they were obnoxious little turd-balls who were just about to pick a fight with us. Like she forgot they stole their sketchbook… I shook those thoughts out. They were just kids. Team Rocket was intimidating to me…well, better example to use, they were intimidating to Michelle, a person who had been out on her own and her own independence for a long time. Those kids seemed like they had just gotten out of their parent’s house and were exploring. That confrontation…like thought earlier, they were just kids.

  I walked over, looking over at them. “What should we do with them?” I asked, realizing that I had nothing to say.

    “We should help them, to start" Michelle replied, seemingly annoyed by Emily's lack of the seriousness of the situation. "Hm...Where should they go to rest up...?”

  “Uh what about...okay if they were Pokémon we could take them to the Pokémon Center in Cherrygrove, but only Pokémon are worked on there so...”

  “Actually they treat people too! They even double as a hotel,” she said, matter of factly. “Why didn't I remember?”

  “Maybe I'm contagious,” I faked worry jokingly.

  Michelle looked at Emily, concern all over her face. "Uh...what? I'm sorry but...that was kind of...random..." her face shrunk. "Uh...I, I don't mean to be invasive, but with what? I mean, I, I'm sorry but...the kids might...well, they might _die_ if they catch anything now!!! And, and I'm really...I DON'TWANNAGETSICK!!!" After she had suggested that the kids could die, she had begun to rock back and forth, worrying more and more.

  I winced a bit, absorbed in the idiocy of myself. "Uh...I meant my lack of remembering...by that..." I said slowly, a bit embarrassed. Michelle stopped and looked up at me. "What?" she asked confused, and then her face went blank, then apathetic. "Oh. I get it." she deadpanned, then burst out laughing hysterically.

  Her laugh was a surprise, but then I smiled, and began to laugh with her. It was such a full laugh, full of energy and life, I couldn't help joining it. I hadn't heard such a full laugh...hadn't heard a real laugh before.

  We sat and stood there laughing as Nurse Joy stepped out of the Pokémon Center and saw us; laughing at the sheer amazement of it all, at our meeting, at our confessions, of Team Rocket and about how we've ended up traveling together after just twenty minutes of our meeting.

  We're so screwed.

 

  The kids lay on beds in a two room hotel/hospital accommodation, fast asleep. "They've been found to have no injuries at all, just fainted from exhaustion." Nurse Joy said to Michelle and Emily, closing the door to the room. "It turned out not being necessary to bring them here, but better safe than sorry."

  "That's so great" I said, sighing a bit. Michelle sighed too, but then breathed in a gasp. She walked into the room silently over to one of the boy's bags at the foot of his bed. She reached in and began digging around. Nurse Joy and I peered in confusedly. Michelle pulled out her hand with the sketchbook in its grasp. "Here it is!" She said happily. I expected her to reemerge negatively towards the kids as she walked over to Nurse Joy and I. She pointed the end of the sketchbook towards Nurse Joy. "Can you be sure to let them know that I got this, so they don't have to worry?" she said sweetly. Nurse Joy nodded. "Of course." She waved us off. "Head straight to Violet city from here, you here? There's been a mess of people getting lost in the Dark Cave and it'd be a shame for you to walk almost all the way there and then have to walk back."

  "We will!"

  We exited the center, turning the pathway towards Violet city. "Well,” I said, taking a breath. "Ready?"

  "Yup," Michelle responded.

  We giggled, and took our first steps out together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the writing deteriorates a bit at the end and switches from first to third person vice versa a lot. I'm sorry about that and we're working on finding every scenario where it does it and switching it back. Thank you for reading the second chapter of this story!


	3. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter, along with the last, has a bit of first person third person jumping...again, sorry and we're working on fixing.  
> That being said, thank you for clicking to read chapter 3! We hope you enjoy it!

   It was nearly twilight when Emily and Michelle could be seen climbing over the hills of Route 30. Their laughter from the previous hour had subdued into silence; they walked together but as separate individuals, as they had no idea what to talk about.

   They had been walking over countless hills though the forest with no sight of any other trainer or nearby houses. Michelle could feel a barrier between her and Emily pushing down on her, and swallowed in discomfort. She looked around and stopped. Emily continued walking for a few steps; unaware Michelle had stopped, and turned around with a curious look. Michelle took a deep breath. “We should probably camp out here for the night,” she said, pushing back the awkward barrier. Emily turned around to face her completely and nodded silently.

   She swung off the messenger bag Michelle had been carrying earlier and knelt to the ground, pulling out the red sleeping bag where she first met the quirky girl. She rolled it out quickly and reached in to take out another sleeping bag; a dark blue color covering the outside. They had bought it recently before going out towards Violet City because, as Michelle had discovered, Emily hadn’t packed _anything_ for her journey. She laid out the sleeping bag and sat down on it, pulling out her Pokégear, staring at it aimlessly.

   Michelle breathed a little sigh and sat down as well. She pulled out a Pokéball, releasing the little fire-breathing Pokémon from the battle earlier. “Cyndaquil, use Ember attack!”

  The cyndaquil squinted and released flames in the space between Michelle and Emily. Emily felt the breeze of the wind blow the fire towards her, it already starting to burn up her face. She gasped and pulled her knees to her, slamming her eyes shut from the heat. She felt the wind rush past her face as a relief and opened them again, readjusting to her previous position. She rearranged her legs to sit on her feet, her knees facing the fire. Her eyes glanced up towards Michelle, who had placed her cyndaquil back into its Pokéball.

  “So…” Emily started casually, blowing through her mouth on the emphasis of the letter “o.” “Is that your first Pokémon?”

  Michelle glanced up skeptically. “No,” she said, turning to see her through the rising flames. “Remember that Pokémon I sent out from before, the fluffy one? That was my first. This one I found right before I met you. Poor thing was almost killed by all those stupid tourists...” She stared into the Pokéball worriedly.

  Emily frowned. “So that Pokémon just walked up to you and you caught it? That’s surprising, I’m pretty sure it’s really rare, even here in Johto…” She smiled kindly after she trailed off and added “That’s really cool. It’s super cute~”

  Michelle smiled and looked down for a while before looking back up at her with a serious expression. “This Pokémon didn't just walk up to me and let me catch it. This Pokémon was trampled by all those people from the boat,” she said, picking up speed in her explanation, beginning to verge on hysteria. “I rescued him and he was more than happy to stay with the only person who thought to save his life. Can you imagine that so many people would just...leave him to die?!”

   I felt a sweatdrop slide slowly down the side of her forehead. “Er...wow. Gosh that's...” I swallowed deeply. “That's just terrible...I'm sorry...”

   Michelle sighed sharply. She seemed to calm down. "It's fine now...but seriously, something is wrong with people. Team Rocket isn’t the only bad guy, you know.” Her tone suddenly turned to that of a lecturer, as if she was a school-teacher. It made me think back to when Jacob would tell the neighborhood kids ‘good advice.’ Michelle continued. “Everyone is. Except the good trainers. I would say you were one of them," she paused, and then started smiling and finished by saying, "but you don't even know your own Eevee's moves." She chuckled good-naturedly.

  If I hadn’t felt underminded when Michelle began to talk to me like I was an ignorant naïve kid, I sure as hell felt underminded now. I tried to bit my lip from making my face slide into a deadpanned grim face, but my lip slid out from under my teeth and the rest of my face slid with it. I didn’t really give a response; I simply muttered out a “sorry that I forgot,” and turned away a little gloomily.

   “Hey, I was just poking some...fun...” Michelle sighed at herself; she started to fidget a bit on her sleeping bag. A deep silence ensued. Michelle looked up at the sky glumly, and her expression lit up.

   “Oh look Emily! The sun! It’s starting to set!”

   Emily tilted her head to see where exactly Michelle was gazing to and turned her head that way. Sure enough, the sun was only inches above the enormous cover of trees. Continuing to stare at it, she scooted around the fire by Michelle, where she could see it more clearly.

   The two stared at it for a minute or so when Emily glanced over to Michelle. “So uh…when does it start…you know…moving?”

   Michelle glanced back confused. “It _is_ moving; it’s going over our heads, past the trees.”

   Emily shrugged, standing up and walking back over to her sleeping bag. “Eh,” she said, jabbing her head swiftly towards the sun, “I haven’t really seen one in motion. I guess its cool…” She sat down on her sleeping bag, lying down flat on her back, looking up at the trees that stretched out behind her.

   Michelle winced. _Does she really not find sunsets beautiful? I thought she had lost her memory at one…_

_Man,_ I thought glumly, staring out at the vast expanse of the forest, _I’m such a loser. It was so pretty; just not what I expected. Ugh, why me..?_

   Michelle cleared her throat. “It’s so pretty back in Unova,” she said reminiscently. “In Castelia, there are a lot of ports and seeing the sun set down over the gleaming water…”

   She looked over at Emily, smiling, and then her mouth dropped open at the sight of a slumped over girl, obviously asleep, snoring softly.

   “What?! How’d she fall asleep so quickly?” Michelle cried panicked to herself. She breathed out a sigh as she glanced over at her again. “She doesn’t seem like the type to fall asleep so quickly…”

   Michelle lay back on her own sleeping bag. “Then again, a hell of a lot of stuff happened to her today…” She closed her eyes for a short moment and yawned. “A lot happened to me too…”

   She got up into her sleeping bag and watched the sun’s rays stretch farther and farther, her eyes getting heavier and heavier…

 

   The next day, the two were up early and had reached a nice meadow area, blooming with flowers, along with plenty of grass Pokémon around.

   Emily and Michelle stood within the meadow, smiling dumbly at the setting. “Ah Michelle…” Emily said dreamily, continuing to stare at the surrounding Pokémon skipping, “isn’t it just a lovely day? A lovely day to frolic through the roselia, no?”

   Michelle’s smile faded a bit. “No actually…One used poison sting on my Pokémon, a-and I wasn’t able to buy any more antidotes and I used my last on the wound…”

   Emily’s face fell into a mixed expression or shock and concern. “Er…Oh look!” she said, pointing to the right. “Sunflora! Non-poisonous sunflora!” Emily frowned nervously. “I hope…”

   Michelle turned frantic. “But I always trip over them!” She paused, her eyes growing wide with realization. “Or maybe… _they’re_ tripping _me!_ ” Her eyes remained wide and attentive, then moved down to an apathetic know-it-all expression. “Psh. Naah, it’s probably just me.”

   Emily stared at Michelle worriedly. She lifted up her finger, pointing towards the forest back behind Michelle. “Oh look, a Ho-oh…” she said unconfiedently.

   Michelle swung around, a new light blazing in her eyes. “What?! Where?? I must catch it for my Pokédex!” She looked around eagerly, not noticing her friend disappear from her side.

   A scream rang out from an unidentified location. Michelle jumped in surprise, and saw Emily was gone. She glanced around fearfully, not seeing her anywhere. “Ahh!” she shouted. “Emily, where are you?!”

   “You’re an unobservant Zubat aren’t you..?” A cold edgy voice said behind Michelle’s head. She turned around to see Emily standing a few feet away, near the ledge of a cliff overlooking a deep valley, surrounded by two tall mountains.

   Michelle sighed in relief and skipped over. “Ah, found you. Why’d you scream? What’s the problem?”

   Emily turned towards the valley, solemnly lifting her hand to point at the sky. It was bright, despite the shadowy appearance the mountains gave to the valley, and there were clouds drifting by.

   Michelle looked out, then back to Emily. “Well…what’s wrong with that?” She asked. She looked back out, perplexed. “I don’t see a thing…” She squinted through her glasses, as if to emphasize that nothing was there.

   Emily spun around quickly, grabbing Michelle’s hand and thrusting it towards the sky. “THAT.”

   Michelle squinted harder and something slowly emerged into view, between the fluffy white clouds. It was a tiny black ominous…cloud?

   Michelle scratched her head. “Oh. Hm…” she said, unable to respond to Emily’s seriousness. “Looks like rain. Maybe fishing will be better and I’ll be able to catch more than just magikarp.”

   “No…you don’t understand…” Emily was hunched over, shuddering, sounding like a broken, tattered down alcoholic. She flung herself over to Michelle, gripping her shoulders as support. Her arms were like weights and Michelle had to struggle to support her without collapsing. “They are CLOUDS.” Emily stated, staring into the depths of Michelle’s eyes.

   “Y-yeah,” Michelle stammered, still struggling with the added weight. “Which means that-”

   The wind suddenly blew past them, whipping Michelle’s hair and Emily’s jacket to the side. It howled out as it pulled out the tiny black cloud from between the other white ones. More and more of the black cloud came out with it, darkening the sky drastically as the valley was covered in a vast expense of darkness.

   Michelle watched this change, still clutching Emily, dumbfounded. “N-now what?!” She asked, fear tearing through to her stomach.

   A single steady voice from her feet answered her. “Them.”

   Michelle swallowed. “T-team Rocket?”

   Emily bounced up at this, throwing in a chuckle. “No, don’t be _craazzy_ ; those idiots would _never_ travel out here…not in this weather either.”

   “So…what is it?”

   She leaned over to Michelle’s head, her mouth close to her ear. “Markets,” she whispered breathlessly, staying in close.

   Michelle paused, and backed away all while turning towards her. “Why are markets bad?!” she asked, more confused than ever before in her life. Emily frowned disapprovingly.

   “They _aren’t_ …unless they’re in CLOUDS!”

   Michelle backed away another step. “What the Pokéball are you talking about?!” she shouted.

   Emily slunk back to her knees, thankfully, Michelle noted, avoiding to grab her shoulders again. “The cloud markets…” she murmured, stretching out the “s” in markets. “They…will find you…look out…” Her expression faded in and out, beginning to turn glassy and foggy, then quickly refocusing, the cycle continuing.

   Michelle sighed exasperated. “And you say that _I’m_ the crazy one…sometimes I wonder…”

   “No!” Emily’s voice rang up to Michelle’s ears, piercing clearly through the howling wind. “They are _real_. I…remember them…” She faded out of her sentence, eyes going foggy, with no return to the normal.

   “Uh, all right then…” Michelle said. “What can they do to us?”

   No response was delivered. Michelle leaned over, waving her hand in front of her face. Emily didn’t so much as move a muscle; she was completely gone. Michelle raised her eyebrows. The same expression remained on Emily as the clouds began to pick up speed, some beginning to emit thunder, the sky still growing darker and darker.

   “Come on!” Michelle said, pulling up on Emily’s arm, trying to drag her back to the forest. “Let’s get out of here!”

   Emily looked up, her foggy expression still there. Her eyes were blank, and Michelle could see her face in them, along with flashing images, too quick to comprehend. “Do not run.” She said in a commanding voice with a lot more power behind it than before, as if there were several people saying this along with her. Michelle gasped in fear.

   “What? Why?! D-don’t you see they’re coming right at us?!”

   Emily’s eyes suddenly flashed back to normal. She looked over and jumped up. “Oh shit! Storm clouds!”

   Michelle slunk down to the ground, burying her head in her hands. “Let’s find shelter…” she said weakly. Emily laughed and threw out her arms towards the swarm of clouds. “Ahhahahaha! We don’t need shelter!” She cried, beaming at the wide expanse.

   “We don’t?” Michelle asked confusedly. “But won’t we get struck by lightning?”

   Emily laughed heartily again. “Nooo,” she said gleefully. “We’ll get struck by…”

   There was a small plunk to the side of Michelle. She looked over, seeing a single macaroni shell lying on the ground. She gazed up to see more shells falling from the sky. “We’ll get struck by…PASTAAA~” Emily cried happily, lifting up her hands to catch a handful of pasta shells. Sure enough, spaghetti noodles, macaroni shells, and ziti tubes.

   Michelle continued staring up at the sky with a blank expression on her face. “This reminds me of a movie my little sister sent me…” she said thoughtfully, choosing to ignore the crazy for now.

   Emily stopped her dancing through the pasta rain and frowned confusedly. “How so?” She laughed again, walking over.

   Michelle sighed a little. “This guy made a machine that makes food rain, and at the end there was a pasta tornado…”

   Emily’s laugh shut off the rest of Michelle’s explanation. “This is normal where I come from!”

   Michelle grew wide-eyed and turned to face Emily. “Th-this is normal in Johto?!”

   “Hahaha! Nooo…not in Johto…” she explained happily, leaning in close. “It’s normal where I’m _really_ from…”

   “Where are you really from…then..?”

   Emily leaned in even closer, her mouth back to Michelle’s ear. “…the skies…” she murmured.

   Suddenly a huge wave of pasta rose up over the cliff ledge. Emily threw her head back and gave a ridiculously high laugh. The pasta on the ledge began to move towards the wave like it was part of an ocean and surrounded Emily’s feet. It began to spin around her, lifting her up from the ground slowly.

   Michelle couldn’t decide what to watch; turning her head back and forth at the events that had taken place so quickly. “What the?!” she cried, staggering back.

   Emily looked down happily, smiling and waving ecstatically as she was raised higher into the air, the propelling up to her hips now. The wave by the cliff suddenly slammed down onto the ledge, covering up Michelle so only her head was showing, pushing her around fiercely like a real riptide would do. She screamed, the pasta in front of her blowing away, still carrying her from one way to the other. Emily was out of sight; carried away by a blessing. Michelle was still trapped, with no control of her body. She slammed her eyes shut, and screamed again.

   The pasta ocean threw itself over the cliff, and slowly made its way to one of the mountains in the valley. It was still dark. The pasta slowly retracted and pushed Michelle out of its bunch, leaned up against the bottom of the mountain slope. Michelle sat there, shuddering and whimpering quietly as the pasta ocean raced away.

   _Michelle_ _…_

  Michelle looked and scooted to face the mountain, curious at the call. There was a small natural pathway that led up to a tiny ledge on the mountain side. The pathway continued up the mountain on the other side, a pathway that wasn’t in Michelle’s eye range at the moment.

   But that wasn’t what she was looking at. There was a faint, spirit of a woman hovering just above the ledge, moving down closer to her very slowly. She had flowing long hair and wearing a long dress that swayed in the wind. She got closer, and put her hands on Michelle’s face, where her cheeks are located.

   _Tell no one_ _…_ _of this_ _…_

   She began to fade away as Michelle watched her, completely captivated by her words and sight.

   _Yes…_

   Her world went black as the woman faded into the dark side of the mountain. A flash of white light beamed in her eyelids and suddenly Michelle was thrust alongside everything she knew and remembered. They were all racing towards…

   Her eyes opened suddenly, wide eyed, taking in the forest landscape around her in which she had been in the previous day. She suddenly felt control in her body again, and stood up quickly, tripping over in the process. When had she lost the ability to move? Why did that happen? When did that meadow appear? Where did the Pokémon nearby disappear to? Who was that lady?!

   She felt a hand rest on her shoulder, and screamed, jumping around. Emily was standing there, groggy eyed. “Michelle, why are you screaming?” She asked tiredly. Michelle backed away from Emily. “I-I had a terrible dream last night!” She shouted frantically. She collapsed onto her sleeping bag. She jumped after landing. “When was I standing up again?!” she asked, on the verge of tears.

   “I-I dreamt that you an-and I were walking through a meadow with all th-the frolicking roselia and sunflora-”

   “What’s a roselia and sunflora?”

   “Th-they’re Pokémon…An-and then you said there was a Ho-oh so I-”

   “What’s a Ho-oh?”

   “I-it’s a Pokémon…and then I looked and you screamed and I didn’t know where you were and you called me an unobservant Zubat and I found you and-”

   “What’s a Zuba-”

   “IT’S A POKÉMON!” Michelle shouted irritably. “A-and so then you were looking at clouds and it got windy and then you couldn’t move and then it started raining pasta and…” Michelle paused. “And…”

   “And..?” Emily prompted skeptically.

   Michelle backed away half an inch, shaking her head. “And then I woke up,” she said, looking at Emily with concern. “I just woke up.”

   Emily glanced down, eyebrows raised. “That’s all that happened?” she asked. Michelle gulped. It sounded suspicious.

   “Ye…yes?”

   Emily’s face fell a bit. “Oh…” she said, walking back to her sleeping bag. “I’ve never really had a dream before…I was just wondering what it was like…”

   Michelle stared off in her direction as Emily flopped onto her sleeping bag groggily, causing the bag beside her to bounce a bit and the shock releasing her eevee, which promptly began to prance around Emily’s body.

  _What exactly happened?_ She thought as Emily swiped wearily at the eevee’s head, missing painfully and slamming her hand onto the ground. _Why did I just stop and blank out when Emily wanted to know about the dream..?_

   Her mind went back to darkness, and an illuminating white light shone through, much like when Michelle was brought back from her dream. A voice rang out, and she saw a woman’s face, eyes closed calmly.

   _Tell no one_ _…_ _of this_ _…_

   Michelle’s eyes widened a bit in remembrance. _Ah, yeah that was it…that lady didn’t want me to tell anyone…but…if I didn’t remember it before, then why did I still not answer Emily’s questi-_

A crash interrupted Michelle’s thoughts and she turned to look over at Emily. She was hunched over, her back facing Michelle, her hand cupped under her mouth. She took a deep breath and glanced over her shoulder at Michelle. “Hey…” she said calmly. Michelle could sense some urgency in her face, but her voice seemed steady and sure. She noticed Vivi smiling up at Emily’s hand, and figured that she didn’t want the Pokémon to see whatever she had or have reason to worry.

   Emily got up and walked over to Michelle, flinging her hand towards the woods. “We’re not going to be headed anywhere very far today…”

   “Wh-what...do you mean? What is it now?” Michelle's eyes widened and she raised her voice in worry. “Cloud markets again?!”

   Emily put her hand up to her mouth in a shush motion, then frowned. “Cloud markets?” She asked confusedly. She thought for a second, then shook her head, not wanting to know. “No, I’m sick.”

   “Oh no!” Michelle gasped and shoved Emily back. She slammed onto the ground with a gasp, and Michelle pulled her back over to her sleeping bag. She propped up her head on a pillow, with Emily too surprised to react. Michelle spoke as she did this. “You're absolutely right; we can't go anywhere if you aren't feeling well! Tell me, what are the symptoms? What are you sick with?” She frantically felt her forehead as Emily stared back at her, highly unamused.

   “I’m not sure…” I stammered, trying to sit up under Michelle’s hands on my shoulders. They held me back down, so I sighed and stopped. “It’s just, I feel really tired and I kind of just threw up…”

   I reached over for Vivi’s Pokéball and sent her back in. It’d be so much easier to get better if Vivi wasn’t bouncing around all over the place; it’d give me time to rest a bit.

   Michelle jumped back. “Oh my gosh! You must feel terrible! Alright, make sure to stay there, and don't move. I read about this one recipe for berry medicine and I think I can make some for you.” She began walking away determinedly.

   I watched her walk away and sighed a little bit. _Was it worth telling her I felt sick?_ I knew what it was, being sick, especially so when vomit was involved. I had never been treated like that before though; worried about. Maybe it was just my age or… _just me._ My head started to feel very light as I sat up, eyes disoriented. I brought my knees up to my chin, and buried my face into them. _Maybe it was just who I wasn’t._

   When Michelle got back, Emily was completely…for lack of a better word, loopy. She couldn’t focus her eyesight on one thing, and couldn’t stand up straight. They had managed to walk a little farther to a place where a little stream flowed by, but it was tough going for Michelle to set up a camp again while also trying to take care of a suddenly reliant Emily.

   She sat down next to Emily’s burning-hot body and tried to make the recipe. She had managed to find enough berries to make the medicine, but couldn’t remember the order they went into the pot to make soup out of. She frowned, and leaned over, gazing at them, trying to restart her memory. _Jeez, now I know how Emily feels,_ Michelle thought. _This is annoying…_

A whirl of wind blew, and moved one of the berries off of the mat they were resting on. Michelle gasped, and reached over to grab it, but it was too quick. It rolled over to her side. She stretched her hand out…but…couldn’t reach again. She groaned and stood up to pick it up with an exasperated sigh, stepping over the loose belongings spread everywhere that the two girls called their camp. Michelle turned around to see Vivi had somehow popped out of her Pokéball. Michelle jumped in fear, gasping loudly. Her shocked heartbeat slowed down again, then flustered her face as she saw that Vivi was eating the rest of the berries.

   “Hey! What are you doing?! Those berries are for your trainer, bad eevee!” Michelle ran over and crouched near the pokémon, pushing the berries away from her. She gasped when looking at the sight of them.

   Now, truth be told, damage was not yet dealt; they all had tiny little teeth bites delicately pulled out of the skins. They seemed small and minuscule. Yet Michelle was twitching at the sight of the inerasable nibbles. “Oh no…” she whispered, bringing them closer to her glasses. “They’re _all_ bitten! This…this is just terrible!”

   She slowly dropped her arms to her sides in devastation, letting the berries roll easily out of her hands. “I _can’t_ use these! Vivi bit them and left her _frit_ zy DNA on every last one of them!” She began to breathe heavily in panic. “What do I do now? I had to search for _forever_ to find this many berries, and that was before Emily became disoriented and beyond sick.”

   At this, she glanced over to Emily’s lumped over sleeping bag. She was slunk up tight inside, giving small quick spasms from the cold. Michelle drew a breath and tiptoed gently over cautiously and quietly. She looked over to see Emily laying on her side, her hands in front of her face, fingers intertwined with the grass growing beside her hair. Her eyes were half closed, unfocused on anything but the distance. Her skin had turned an extreme white, and she seemed ready to pass out at any second.

   Michelle put a smile on despite her rising fears and knelt beside the sleeping bag. “Emily…” she said cheerily, smiling down at the ghostly figure, “how are you feeling?”

   Emily’s eyes gazed slowly up at her. They seemed to have turned from the light brown of her hair to a dull dirt shade. They squinted as her head moved with them, appearing weak and frightened.

   She opened her mouth and took in a breath as an attempt to respond, but her hand flew up to her mouth in a fist, and she began to cough violently into her hand.

   She rasped out a clear breath and started to breathe calmly again. “I’m a…a bit better…” she choked out, her eyes going back to the same small fearful look before.

   Michelle’s feigned happiness fell. She sat down next to the sleeping bag as Emily went into another coughing fit. She didn’t feel right sitting there beside her; felt as if she was intruding or out of place. She closed her eyes. _I’m going to have to go find more berries_ she thought, the coughs becoming white noise to her, _she’s getting worse. Even she should know it; she’ll understand._

   She was patient enough to wait until this cough attack subsided. She leaned over to look at Emily more directly. “Emily,” she said seriously. As Emily turned her head to look up at her, she swallowed back a bit of hesitation and continued, calm and stoic. “I need to go and leave again. I have to find something to help you. You’ll be all right on your own, so I’m just going to leave you here.”

   Emily’s eyes grew wide with fear. She had the look of a small child, and it threw Michelle off her serious stature. “Wh-wha-what?” Emily asked frantically, coughing between vowels. “Why-y wou-ld yo-ou go?” She sat up on her knees, putting her hands onto Michelle’s own knees and grew a pleading voice. “Please do-on’t go,” she said desperately, beginning to hiccup as well as cough. It didn’t help her cause obviously, but she continued to beg.

   Stings of regret passed through Michelle. “No, no, it's okay. I'll be back soon. Then when I come back, I won't have to leave you again, all right?” She hesitantly put a hand on top Emily's head. “If anything happens, just scream as loud as you can.”

   She could see something glimmer in Emily’s eyes. When one grew, she realized they were tears. “No-o,” Emily moaned in desperation. Her arms slunk to her sides as she looked up at the sky, devastated. “Yo-ou-ou can’t go!”

   She struggled to talk with her coughs and hiccups, but she managed to get more out. “If you leave, the-e…th-eh thi-in-ng mi-ight ge-het me!”

   “Emily, Vivi's here, and so are Crayola and Cyndaquil. You'll be fine,” she said, stressing the last word. “And like I said, if something happens, just scream and I'll come running as fast as I can.”

   Her eyes shrunk as her crushed expression grew more hopeless. “Bu-ut it’s really clo-ose by!” She cried. “I kno-ow it’s…there…” she faded off, growing more worried by the second. “It’s going to get me and then you if you don’t stay!”

   “Tell me,” Michelle began, placing her hands on Emily's heaving shoulders, “what is this ‘thing’ you're talking about?”

   Emily’s despair faded as she looked out of the top corner of her eyes in a thinking manner. She stayed quiet, framing her eyes as she struggled to come up with an answer. “It…I know it’s here,” she said, reverting back to the original comment, unable to come up with an answer. “It’ll…it’ll hurt you and then you have to go and your farm will get ruined!”

    “I don't have a farm...” Michelle furrowed her brow in confusion. She paused, blinking rapidly in realization, and shook her companion gently. “Emily, i-it's me, Michelle, remember?”

   Emily pushed Michelle off with a frustrated scowl. “I kno-ow it’s you,” she said harshly. Michelle winced at the sudden anger that had appeared in Emily. “And the-e thing…it’s goi-ing to go and ruin the farm and you wo-on’t be able to live in Johto with you-our cousi-in anymore…”

   Emily’s face remained a frown, but some confusion emerged onto her face. Michelle shook her head slowly in horror and anger at what the sickness had done to her friend, got up, and sprinted back into the woods.

   Soon enough, she stopped and leaned against a tree to catch her breath. “All right...” she said quietly to herself, “she needs those berries now more than ever.”

   She looked up and surveyed the trees and bushes heavily by sight. She caught eye of something, and walked over to a nearby bush. Sure enough, there was a bushel of berries growing on the tips. She picked whatever she could find and thoroughly checked each berry for bruises and bumps. After the fifth tree she checked, she looked into her hand to find only one berry and sighed in frustration. This was taking too much time. How much longer until Emily went completely nuts?

   “Shuh, shuh.”

   Michelle looked over to a bush where the cry had come from. “Wait a minute...was that..?” She pulled out a small red device and slid its top upwards. The screen lit up. “Shuckle, the Mold Pokémon. When Shuckle places organic materials in its husk-like shell, the items are transformed into a unique juice that can become medicines with added ingredients,” it read.

“Perfect! I just need to catch this Pokémon and collect its juice!” She cried happily, a determined light entering her eyes.

   The turtle-like Pokémon crawled out of the grass. It seemed to have heard the trainer. Michelle reached down to her side where her Trainer’s belt would be, and felt her hand brush past her leg. She snapped her fingers in frustration. “Dammit, my Pokémon are with Emily...” She sighed and rummaged through her bag for a Net Ball. “Looks like I'll have to take my chances. Pokéball, go!” She shouted, tossing it at the alarmed Pokémon.

   Michelle's target disappeared into the blue-gray ball with a flash. It rocked back and forth, the white button flashing red rhythmically. One…two…Michelle leaned in after the second time the Pokéball rocked. She had it..!

   Much to Michelle's dismay, the ball opened and the Shuckle emerged again, scrambling away awkwardly.

   “Grrr! Maybe a Net Ball wasn't the right choice...Come back here, you!” Michelle ran after the Shuckle - who was crawling surprisingly fast - and reached into her bag again, pulling out several different types of Pokéballs with various designs and colors on them. She began to chuck them at the Pokémon one by one. None of them hit at all and instead rolled away.

   Michelle stopped suddenly, anger building up from her feet to the tips of her cat ears. The trainer had lost her patience. She picked up a small, heavy rock nearby and hurled it at the Shuckle with a grunt. It hit the Pokémon's head and left a red bump. _At least that had hit,_ she thought. _Maybe now he'll be too weak to run..._

   The Pokémon turned around slowly with an angry glare its eyes, snarling.

_Oops._

   “Aaah! Nonononono! Listen, Mr. Shuckle, I didn't think that would hit you! I'm so sorry!” She waved her hands in front of her face frantically, but it was too late. The Shuckle withdrew its limbs and head and began spinning in place like a tire. “Rollout?! Nooo~!” Michelle cried. She threw the berries behind her and ran away, eyes tearing up and blurring her vision. Shuckle chased after her, spinning faster than before.

 

   Back at the camp, after the initial shock and gasping, topped of with a tiny wail, Emily had collapsed back into her sleeping bag, deep under massive sudden exhaustion. She was slunk up even more inside than before, and you could barely even see the top of her head; the frizz from her hair was the only thing sticking out.

   The campsite was still the same; items spewn all about the ground in the open. It was all guarded by three defenseless Pokémon trapped in their Pokéballs who could only be released by this sleeping being.

   So in other words, any Trainer could walk over and take anything they wanted to.

   Footsteps could be heard from a tiny pathway going against the river upstream. Two men emerged from the pathway, walking briskly into the open space. They stopped once they saw the mess in the area. One turned to his partner and smiled brightly. “Looks like we just found ourselves a campsite for us to take, huh Daniel?”

   Daniel nodded silently and plopped down. The other man walked around, eyeing the goodies they could ransack. “Well, looks like all of it is good to take!” He exclaimed, leaning over to swipe up Emily’s backpack with the Pokémon still inside of. “I’d bother to check it, but the idiotic trainer who must’ve left the stuff behind might come back,” he said, grinning widely at his friend, showing a cracked toothy smile. Daniel nodded silently again, and began to pick up the scattered goods; an old town map, some potions, a few plastic sporks and a small yellow hat with little ears hanging off the sides. It was too small for him, but it could be sold easily.

   He finished gathering them up and noticed a blue sleeping bag. He glanced over at his partner. _If Buster has a bag, then I need one_ , he decided, and quickly threw the items he had inside and picked it up by the top. He groaned a little under the weight of the bag, but began to walk back towards the path they had entered the space in. _If it’s heavy, that means that there must be a lot of stuff in it,_ he thought. _It must be worth a lot of money too._

   They walked away from the now empty site, leaving nothing but light footprints. As Buster and Daniel walked farther away, the sleeping bag got heavier on Daniel’s back. He was very strong, but didn’t have a lot of endurance, and found himself panting after a few minutes.

   Buster turned around to face him with a glare. “All right, lazy,” he said, tossing down the stolen bag. “Throw down your bag and let’s sit for awhile.”

   Daniel nodded gratefully and slowly slid the sleeping bag off of his shoulder, wincing as he set it down against a mountain wall. He sat down next to Buster, who was already pulling out a soda.

   “Say Dan, have you gotten any calls from Marco or Peter lately?”

   Daniel shook his head. Their bosses had assigned them to this area to maintain trainers arriving from the cruise, but when they had arrived, they received no additional information. For days, they had wandered up and down Route 30 along the edges of Dark Cave, snatching loose items from other inexperienced trainers. They hadn’t struck as well as they had just now though.

   Buster shook his head after taking a deep swig of his soda. “Oh well. Not like I want to have any work,” he said jokingly, smiling to himself. “We could just sell all this stuff and use it all as our salary income-all well spent at Goldenrod, home of the races…and slots!” He said, smacking his knee. His expression grew serious. “Say Dan…maybe we’d better check what’s in here to see if it’s worth selling.”

   He reached into Emily’s bag, shifting things around while Daniel sat and watched mutely. His eyes didn’t seem all impressed, until his hands hit something and they grew wide. His eyes stayed fixed inside the bag as his other had reached over to pull out three Pokéballs. “Dan, check this out!” He cried excitedly, waving his hand for Daniel to walk over. When he got over, Buster held the Pokéballs up to him. “Lookie here; so many rare Pokémon!”

   Cyndaquil glared up at the black clothed human but caught sight of Crayola, who shook his head and tilted it back down to the bag. Cyndaquil took a breath and calmed down a bit, still looking wearily at the man staring closely at it. Vivi looked intrigued at the strangers, smiling kindly at them. She obviously didn’t sense the dangers of strangers holding Pokéballs so closely when original trainers weren’t nearby.

   Buster looked over at Daniel. “This is amazing,” he said jubilantly, looking back down at them. “Nothing could get better than this!”

   While Buster was occupied with the Pokéballs, Daniel noticed something twitch in the bag. He leaned over and gently began to go through the things inside. He saw the thing twitch again, and pulled out a black round egg with triangular patterns colored in red and blue along it. He frowned at it, and jumped a bit as it twitched again.

   “Dan, you’ve got an egg!”

   Buster, still clutching the Pokéballs sat next to Daniel, looking deeply at the egg. The Pokémon in the Pokéballs began to cry out noises in anger and protest. Buster glared at them. “Shut your mouths,” he snarled at them. “When we get to Violet, we’re sending you off to Marco, and that won’t be good on your part.”

   The threat didn’t silence them. Buster rolled his eyes, and continued to look at the egg. It twitched in Daniel’s hands and Buster grinned impishly. “It’s close to hatching,” he said greedily. “When it does, we can give it off to the black market. I have a feeling I know what it is, but the color is setting me off…”

   A low yet powerful moan suddenly erupted from the other side of the crag. Buster and Daniel jumped from surprise. Daniel instantly clutched the egg, understanding its value, but Buster let the Pokéballs drop to the ground. This was just what they needed.

   The Pokéballs dropped on their trigger buttons, and each of them popped out, Crayola and Cyndaquil posed to fight. Cyndaquil looked over to Vivi and was surprised to see her expression and stance; she was positioned to fight, which was surprising but her expression had a small yet definitive smirk upon it, leering up at Buster. _Vee!_ She cried, and they all charged.

   Buster fell back, away from the tiny monsters. Cyndaquil stopped and released a smokescreen into Buster’s vision, leaving him coughing and gasping for breath and water. He began to stumble on the ground, searching through the smoke for anything that could help him.

   Daniel, still holding the Pokémon egg carefully, backed away out of the smoke. He looked around frantically, trying to see any of the Pokémon coming. A crunch of a leaf behind him caused him to jump and he saw Crayola leering at him. He clutched the egg closer to him, squeezing his eyes shut. The wind whooshed past his ear and he opened his eyes to see Cyndaquil had hopped from out of the smokescreen, jumping around to face him.

   Cyndaquil lunched at Daniel, using tackle, and knocked him off his feet. The egg began to slide out of his hands, and up into the air. Crayola ran and grabbed it, sending a thunder shock back to Daniel. He heard him groan out in pain, and heard slamming noises, figuring Cyndaquil had commenced beating him into a pulp with his tackle.

   Crayola looked down at the egg. It seemed to be all right, even after that horrible ordeal. It seemed warm enough.

   He was paying a bit too much attention to the egg, that he didn’t notice the wall of thick smoky-gray become darker as a silhouette appeared. Suddenly, Buster leaped out, gasping a bit, but otherwise, perfectly unscathed. And unhappy.

   He lunched at Cyndaquil, who was so surprised and occupied with the fight that he didn’t have enough time to blast off another smoke screen. Buster glared down at him, and smacked him off of Daniel’s helpless body, sending him flying into the side of the mountain. Cyndaquil slid to the ground, and made a struggle to get back up, to get back to stop Buster, but fell back, unable to move.

   Still poised in his striking position, Buster swung his head around to glare at Crayola. Crayola jumped a bit at the look, but held the egg tightly and cast an equally as frightening glare back. Buster spun around, pulling out a switchblade, flipping it open. He sucked in his lips, waiting for the right time to strike.

   Something dark covered the space between the two. Crayola looked up to see something fly through the air, and land onto a bolder beside Daniel’s unconscious body. Vivi was there, giving the same threatening smirk it was showing before. It paused, and closed its eyes. Buster and Crayola made no move and instead, looked closely at it. It seemed to be doing something…rather simply. Rather easily. Something, Crayola thought, he hadn’t seen her do before.

   As her eyes opened slowly, it hit him:

   She had been focusing.

   A blinding light pierced through the area, stunning everyone around. When Crayola opened his eyes, Buster had fallen on the ground, singed completely. He sprung up and glanced over at the now innocent smiling Eevee, and rushed over to Daniel, tugging at him and pulling at him to get up and run for it. He had to drag him off, but they left. Cyndaquil joined the crew, looking totally fine, and they watched the Rocket members scurry away.

   Another groan came from the back, and the Pokémon turned around to see the sleeping bag slumped up against the crag side. A mumble came out from it, and out popped Emily’s head, looking fully awake.

   I looked around and noticed Michelle’s Pokémon and my Vivi. Crayola was holding a little black egg, one I hadn’t seen Michelle have earlier. Nothing else in the area was what I had seen earlier either.

   I climbed out of my sleeping bag completely, turning to look at it, then back at the Pokémon. “Where the heck are we?” I asked, utterly confused. The Pokémon glanced at each other and laughed. I gave a little smile. Nice to know they’re getting along.

 

   I had to drag my sleeping bag along with my backpack back to camp, and I was able to find the way back thanks to the Pokémon, who refused to go back into their Pokéballs. I looked around, seeing Michelle hadn’t come back yet from berry hunting. Then it hit me: I didn’t feel sick anymore.

   I put my hand up to my head; same cool temperature as always. Maybe I just needed some rest…

   I saw Michelle stumble through the forest, covered in dirt and twigs encased and tangled in her hair. I ran over to help her. “Oh gosh, yikes,” I said, seeing little cuts on her arms. “What happened?”

   “What happened?” Michelle snorted. “I was trying to catch a Shuckle but it flipped out on me and started using rollout! Then I got cornered and it wrapped me up and I couldn’t move for a good five minutes! I thought I was a goner.”

   I stood there, the jargon of Pokémon going over my head once more. Michelle smacked her head with her hand. “I got attacked by a Pokémon I was trying that makes berry juice to make you better.”

   I felt a pang of irony and a bit of cruelty as I spread my arms jokingly. “Good news then,” I said nervously, “I’m all better!”

   Michelle slumped down onto the ground. “That’s good to hear.”

   She looked up at my sleeping bag, contents flowing out of the unzipped side. “Whats with that?” She asked curiously. “Did you horde to occupy the time?”

   I grinned a bit weakly, sweatdropping a tad. “Actually, I woke up with all that in there. I have no idea how it got there.” I stopped, deciding to leave out the info that I ended up around a quarter of a mile away from where we were now. Personally, I suspect those grinning and playing Pokémon. But why bring it up now, when they’re getting along so well?

   I noticed something yellow in the sleeping bag, and went to look at it closer, not recognizing it. Pulling it out, I remembered it was that hat I had gotten back home; the one that was in my old Trainer case…

   “Whats that?” Michelle called from her seat on the ground.

   I held the hat carefully by the ears and turned around to show her. “It’s a hat I found at home; right before I left.”

   “Why don’t you wear it?”

   I looked at it. “That’s a good question.”

   I opened up the inside and pulled it over my head. The ears flopped over to the back of my head almost instantly, and my head grew a bit more warm. I tilted my head over one way, feeling the ears move lazily, then did the same the other way. I felt nice in the hat, but somehow self-consciousness got in the way.

   “Does it look bad?”

   “No way,” Michelle said. “It’s cute~ It looks like it could be a Pikachu head.”

   I walked back over to her. “What does a Pikachu look like?”

   Michelle winced a bit at that, and pulled out a red machine. She flipped it open and typed in some random letters. A tiny yellow mouse thing appeared on the screen. “That’s a Pikachu,” she said. I shrugged. “Cool, I guess.” I tugged a bit at one of the ears. “The hat is cute.”

   Michelle smiled. “Yeah it is.” She looked up; the sun was starting to go down.

   “Argh, darn it not again,” she sighed. At this rate we’ll never get any farther…

   She turned to see Emily completely asleep, rolled over to the side, snoring lightly. She sighed, and walked over to her sleeping bag, unzipping it completely and laid it over Emily as a blanket, letting all the loose sporks and potions and other nicknacks fall out. She grabbed the Pokéballs from Emily’s bag and sent everyone back inside, then glanced inside of her bag to make sure her egg was still safe. She pulled it shut, and snuck into her own sleeping bag, watching the sun get farther away until it was gone…


End file.
